How Much Do You Care About Novelty?

[Ruin Explorer]

Sure, you always get purist fanbois with their gatekeeping and one-true-wayism.

I mean, that's a cheap and rather bitter characterization that I'd think was beneath you. God forbid someone seek to be able to identify a genre, eh?

But it doesn't change the fact that I'm right, and I think you know it doesn't. Steampunk was not an equivalent of -gate at the time in the 1980s and early 1990s. It became that later.

But the fact is most people just like mixing up Victorian costumes with cogs and gears.

These were different groups of people, at different times. Steampunk was a literary genre. Then the term started being used for just any kind of Victoriana that wasn't striving for historical authenticity, or any HG Wells-esque retrofuture. I personally think it was kind of gross because there was so much worship of elites, so much lionization of creeps, so much deletion/elision of the horrors of the Victorian era in a lot of the Victoriana (and some of the retrofuture stuff). I see far less of an issue with proper fantasy that is steam age/gaslamp vibes, note, it's when it's using real-world stuff (places, people, etc.) and whitewashing the hell out of that it grosses me out, especially because that kind of stuff is directly adjacent to Nazi-style "things were better in our imagined, whitewashed (in all senses of the word) past!".

Which was true for the original punks too. There were some anti-establishment types, but some just liked the fashion and thought they looked cool with spiky green hair.

"He's the one
Who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means"

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I mean, that's a cheap and nasty thing to say that I'd think was beneath you.

Are you trying to claim its not true?!

Steampunk was not an equivalent of -gate at the time in the 1980s and early 1990s. It became that later.

How would you know? I wasn't aware of the genre in the 80s, and you are 9 years younger than me. Steampunk toddler society? The past is another country, they do things differently there. I'm not in a position to comment on what steampunk used to be, I wasn't there, only what it is now.

I see far less of an issue with proper fantasy that is steam age vibes, note, it's when it's using real-world stuff and whitewashing the hell out of that it grosses me out, especially because that kind of stuff is directly adjacent to Nazi-style "things were better in our imagined, whitewashed (in all senses of the word) past!".

You are letting you emotions interfere with your objectivity (just like the people who romanticise the past do). Verne was a Romantic, he believed science and technology could lead to a brighter future. Well's Shape of Things to Come was a utopian novel (at least as conceived by the author). Was Dickens a dystopian writer? Is it still dystopian if you write about the world as you see it? To what extent does Dickens inform our impression of the Victorian age?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Are you trying to claim its not true?!

I'm saying most people who have opinions about genres are not, in fact, "purist fanbois" nor engaging in "one-true-wayism" or "gatekeeping", which are in fact just bunch of cheap and vaguely demeaning buzzwords strung together for effect.

Those people do exist, but your implication appears to be that everyone who so much as thinks "That's not actually part of that genre" is a "purist fanboi". Hell the "fanboi" bit doesn't even make sense! What are they even fanbois of in this example? Usually to have fanbois you need to be a person or at least a very specific brand/IP, not an entire genre!

(Next up I get accused of gatekeeping the word "fanboi" lol)

You are letting you emotions interfere with your objectivity (just like the people who romanticise the past do).

I don't think I am lol. I'm going from history books (and later from documentaries), not fiction. That's the issue, in fact. Romanticized fiction vs nasty history. This is why I think it's a lot less bad when we're looking at pure fantasy setting set in a similar technological era. Ironically though they actually tend to be less romanticized than most retrofuture stuff set in the "real world".

Was Dickens a dystopian writer?

I mean, he was frequently writing about a society we could easily describe as a dystopia (London was pretty monstrous), and no I don't think he was "writing about the world as he saw it", he wasn't writing "social realism", he was writing melodrama, where he both elided the horrors of his society and occasionally exaggerated them for dramatic effect.

I didn't read any Dickens until my 20s and later, so I can't say he influenced me hugely on my view of the Victorian era.

Also this is the most schoolteacher-ass sentence I've read since I was in school (compliment not an insult, schoolteachers rock by and large):

To what extent does Dickens form our impression of the Victorian age?

Don't you try and set me a 2000 word essay just because I'm a few years younger than you, mister!

 

[Reynard]

Yes it has. In the 90s TSR was happy to throw money at more novel settings like Dark Sun, Spelljammer and Planescape. Then WotC canceled everything except Forgotten Realms.

I prefer TSR’s Alternity. Unfortunately WotC canceled it and took the PDFs off drivethrurpg.

I hate the hobby because of stunts like this. Creator makes fun novel setting, then it gets canceled and locked in copyright jail. It happens all the time and I am sick of it.

Ah, the good old days, when everything was sunshine and rainbows and creators had vision!

This sort of myopic, rose colored glasses view of "back then" isn't just exhausting, it actively hurts the hobby.

There were some great games and settings in the 90s. It was, in fact, a time of innovation. But it didn't end with publication of the last Alternity supplement.

I don't think the hobby has ever had as much innovation and a greater number of voices than it does now. We are spoiled for choices, from huge licensed properties to weirdo indie hits.

Today's industry is more accessible, creative and diverse than it has been since that first Post D&D late 1970s rush.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't think I am lol. I'm going from history books, not fiction. That's the issue, in fact.

The past was horrible is fact. But letting the suspicion that some people might be guilty of romanticising it inform the way you define a genre is not.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Also this is the most schoolteacher-ass sentence I've read since I was in school (compliment not an insult, schoolteachers rock by and large)

Complement accepted! The job of a teacher is to get someone to think for themselves, not to tell them what is so, so asking questions is more important than answering them.

 

[Campbell]

Ah, the good old days, when everything was sunshine and rainbows and creators had vision!

This sort of myopic, rose colored glasses view of "back then" isn't just exhausting, it actively hurts the hobby.

There were some great games and settings in the 90s. It was, in fact, a time of innovation. But it didn't end with publication of the last Alternity supplement.

I don't think the hobby has ever had as much innovation and a greater number of voices than it does now. We are spoiled for choices, from huge licensed properties to weirdo indie hits.

Today's industry is more accessible, creative and diverse than it has been since that first Post D&D late 1970s rush.

Yeah. You just need to know where to look. It doesn't come from the same people or exist in the same spaces, but there is an abundance of creativity.

It's not fundamentally different from say people complaining about AAA video games while denying the well-storm of creativity in AA games happening right now.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think the hobby has ever had as much innovation and a greater number of voices than it does now. We are spoiled for choices, from huge licensed properties to weirdo indie hits.

This is very true. We might moan about some cool older settings being MIA because they've effectively been IP vaulted by WotC, but they're usually at least available as PDFs of the old books, and what we're getting today is insanely more diverse in every possible meaning of the word diverse than what we were getting even 20 years ago, let alone in the 1990s or earlier.

Re: Alternity I personally found the settings for it pretty dire as well so I feel like it's a bit strange to see people praising them as if they were angelic creations from a better age.

Dark*Matter sounded cool and zeitgeisty on paper, but some insane reason, it took a very weird and specific right-wing approach to conspiracies (with tons of bonus xenophobia and racism), which I've written about before here, and was absolutely insane in a bad, bad way.

Star Drive was an extremely mid and unexceptional/unremarkable sci-fi setting, which seemed to be dedicated to making the galaxy as unexciting as humanly possibly, which technically still being "space opera". It was also specific enough that it wasn't hugely helpful for making your own space opera settings.

Gamma World for Alternity I can't comment on, I didn't read that version. Maybe it was good? But I don't hear it praised much (the 4E one, sure).

 

[dragoner]

I guess I do like novelty in having accurate starmaps, and a modern science fiction setting in Solis People of the Sun.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Gamma World I can't comment on, I didn't read that version. Maybe it was good?

2e? Think Fallout with the 1e AD&D rules. It was okay. Only played a couple of times.