A stick in the mud, a dinosaur?

[Flyspeck23]

People who don't love the new stuff (whatever that may be) tend to feel like they're a minority, because those that love the new stuff tend to be pretty vocal about it.

Of course people are talking more about the new settings like Eberron and Iron Kingdoms, because they are, well, new.

Of course you're a dinosaur!
What's wrong with being a dinosaur?
I like being a dinosaur!

The Auld Grump, having a stegosaurus moment...

If he's a dinosaur and if he'd like halflings, Eberron would be his favorite campaign world.

 

[Testament]

All kidding aside, recently I've been exposed to some very young gamers (my 11-year old nephew and his friends), and they have absolutely no idea who Ivanhoe, the Grey Mouser, or Elric are. At all. And they have no interest in learning, either.

Greyhawk would bore them to death. For them, fantasy is a weird blend of Peter Jackson, Anime, and Warcraft.

Bingo, here's the heart of the matter. I'm 22, and the only reason I've even heard of Vance, Lieber and Moorcock is becase I know a lot of older gamers. And trying to find their books, at least for me, has been about three doors down from impossible.

The source material has changed between the generations, we're the media generation. By and large for us, Fantasy has been shaped by a HUGE number of sources, not the least of which is myriad different video games. For me, fantasy has been shaped largely by Tolkien (and PJ's adaptation of it), the early writings of David Eddings (before he ran out of ideas), Warhammer, the games of Blizzard (especially Diablo), and to some extent, the Final Fantasy games. Ironically, a lot of these were shaped by D&D, look how many tropes were carried across to Warcraft for instance. And you know as well as I do that the team at Blizzard are gamers, look at all the in-jokes.

Mark my words, the next generation will be different again. Its inevitable. And it doesn't worry me in the slightest, I'm not gonna be one of those grognards who looks at the new settings and rants "that's not D&D!".

Not that I'm taking a swipe at anyone here .

 

[Steel_Wind]

I've seen a lot of this in Dragonlance too. In Dragonlance, there is one crowd who continues to play in the War of the Lance, another that won't go beyond the Chaos War, and yet another that likes the changes in the modern day. That's the simplified version, of course.

Point is, there's always going to be people who like the "classic" material, and that's okay. There's also going to be those who like the latest, and those who like points in between.

Who you calling OLD?

I'm with the original poster. This floating city Eberron stuff has ZERO interest to me.

Give me traditional fantasy, please, any day.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

Well, I have been called a "stick in the mud" myself. I prefer Greyhawk and have no interest in Eberron. The anime flavor seems to be what most younger gamers in my area want, but I show my age by just not getting into it. Of course, I stopped getting into the "next big thing" when Forgotten Realms came out.

Oh well, I am up for a nursing home game myself someday.

DM

 

[TheAuldGrump]

People who don't love the new stuff (whatever that may be) tend to feel like they're a minority, because those that love the new stuff tend to be pretty vocal about it.

Of course people are talking more about the new settings like Eberron and Iron Kingdoms, because they are, well, new.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I love Iron Kingdoms too. But there is nothing wrong with the archtypical fantasy setting either. Both are good, and I have fun in either setting. (And I will admit to a taste for steam...) But sometimes you just want to be a dwarf with an axe over his shoulder, whistling the Hi Ho song.

The Auld Grump, who sadly started whistling the tune as soon as he mentioned it...

 

[fusangite]

I think one of the reasons there is a perceived tension between two perfectly legitimate ways of playing D&D is this: based on the physics of D&D as they are described in the rules, it would be essentially impossible for a world like Greyhawk to have come into being. Most feudal, quasi-feudal and other agrarian pre-modern societies just wouldn't come into being in a world whose physics were like D&D. And yet these worlds are precisely the ones that most D&D players want to game in. So, those of us who are often attracted to Greyhawk-type worlds tend to exhibit fidelity to genre whereas those of use attracted to Eberron-type worlds exhibit a fidelity to physics.

 

[Turjan]

I think one of the reasons there is a perceived tension between two perfectly legitimate ways of playing D&D is this: based on the physics of D&D as they are described in the rules, it would be essentially impossible for a world like Greyhawk to have come into being. Most feudal, quasi-feudal and other agrarian pre-modern societies just wouldn't come into being in a world whose physics were like D&D. And yet these worlds are precisely the ones that most D&D players want to game in. So, those of us who are often attracted to Greyhawk-type worlds tend to exhibit fidelity to genre whereas those of use attracted to Eberron-type worlds exhibit a fidelity to physics.

Oh please! Though I agree with your point about how unlikely a world like Greyhawk is, the same holds true for Eberron. Fidelity to physics? Quite obviously not . And I think this argument is beside the point. The original post was not about Greyhawk specifically, but also mentioned Tolkienesque settings. I agree that the emphasis of these settings is more on the epic side than on, e.g., economical micromanagement, but there is no problem in changing the settings enough to make them more likely without converting them into something like Eberron. Having the opportunity to do something does not imply that this opportunity is automatically utilized in a - from our modern point of view - straightforward way. Just think of China and its use of gunpowder.

 

[nobodez]

I think one of the reasons there is a perceived tension between two perfectly legitimate ways of playing D&D is this: based on the physics of D&D as they are described in the rules, it would be essentially impossible for a world like Greyhawk to have come into being. Most feudal, quasi-feudal and other agrarian pre-modern societies just wouldn't come into being in a world whose physics were like D&D. And yet these worlds are precisely the ones that most D&D players want to game in. So, those of us who are often attracted to Greyhawk-type worlds tend to exhibit fidelity to genre whereas those of use attracted to Eberron-type worlds exhibit a fidelity to physics.

That's exactly why I love Eberron. It's not just a generic middle-ages world, it's got culture, it's got spunk, it's got something other then bland.

Of course, it's also got a very long timeline. Think of it, for hundreds of years, maybe longer, they've been at a state of technology just before gunpowder. No real advancement, nothing. You don't have any ancient bronze age relics, you have ancient relics from the same technilogical advancement. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but at least Eberron is a slightly more realistic fantasy world.

 

[3d6]

I've been wondering if I am a stick in the mud or a dinosaur for preferring more traditional Tolkienesque/Greyhawk type settings.

That's a really weird sentiment. What does Greyhawk have to do with "Tolkienesque"? You have a high-magic world, thick with magic items and with thousands upon thousands of wizards and other magic-users, a world filled with adventurerers, and a bewildering variety of monsters cribbed at random from real world mythology and science fiction stories, including an alien flying saucer crashed in the mountains, vs. a low magic world, with a handful of magical items, a number of magic users you can count on your fingers, and a handful of supernatural monsters, most of which are so obscure that no one in the world other than a select few as ever heard of them.

How can you pine for a "traditional Tolkienesque/Greyhawk" setting? Its contradictory.

 

[Turjan]

How can you pine for a "traditional Tolkienesque/Greyhawk" setting? Its contradictory.

Well, why not look at the points they have in common? These are vast, empty lands with lots of wilderness for adventures, only very few population centers, they have wizards and magic, and they sport a generally rural, slowpaced society. The difference is more quantitative than qualitative, and this is due to practical reasons: if there are only three wizards, five artifacts and one big evil guy in the whole world, the number of permutations for epic adventures is pretty slim .