Anyone Else Tired of The Tyranny of Novelty?

[TheSword]

The Ice Campaign? As in the one that takes place in the 10 Towns? How is that not a normal fantasy kingdom. Even granting the Chult campaign, which, frankly, since it's borrowing from all sorts of older sources, is hardly particularly original, the other three you list all came out in the last 12 months. So, out of 7 years, you've had 6 years of "normal fantasy kingdom" barring one example.

Let's see - Phandelver, Hoard, Princes, Out of the Abyss (a large chunk of that takes place in "normal fantasy kingdom"), Strahd, Storm King's Thunder, Tales of the Yawning Portal, Waterdeep Dragon Heist/Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Rime of the Frost Maiden.

How many "normal fantasy kingdom" adventures do you need? I mean, heck, Candlekeep Mysteries all take place in the Sword Coast. Several of them take place in or around Baldur's Gate. It's hardly the "Library Campaign" if none of the adventures are actually set in a library.

So, yeah, I'm thinking that you don't have a whole lot of room to talk here. You've got more than enough "normal fantasy kingdom" adventures to last you for the next several years. Can the rest of us please have some thing new that ISN'T set in a "normal fantasy kingdom"?

If you think Out of the Abyss is a normal fantasy kingdom campaign then we have very different approaches. One chapter out of 16 takes place on the surface. I also dispute that idea that Chult, Icewind Dale or Avernus are typical settings.

Despite that, as I said the campaigns have got more and more ‘out there’ as time has gone on. I’ve given the list already. It’s worth noting that I enjoy these campaigns too. I just don’t want future campaigns to get wackier and wackier as designers strive for originality. It just needs to be interspersed with classic-done-well to keep me happy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If you think Out of the Abyss is a normal fantasy kingdom campaign then we have very different approaches. One chapter out of 16 takes place on the surface. I also dispute that idea that Chult, Icewind Dale or Avernus are typical settings.

Despite that, as I said the campaigns have got more and more ‘out there’ as time has gone on. I’ve given the list already. It’s worth noting that I enjoy these campaigns too. I just don’t want future campaigns to get wackier and wackier as designers strive for originality. It just needs to be interspersed with classic-done-well to keep me happy.

Exactly. Novelty is great, but it isn’t the only thing that is great.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Originality has had a cultural vogue in the West for a couple centuries now, and thanks to globalism can tyrannize the whole world in our current epoch. For most of human history it was, if anything, the opposite extreme. Historically originality was more often looked on as suspect, and "novelty" and it's cognates have at times even had a negative connotation (which is likely the root of the specific word "novelty" also meaning a trivial thing). In a culture that is to any degree traditional, appeals to established ways of doing things have great persuasive power and art and entertainment is likely to be appreciated for how well it works within, references, and acknowledges some sort of accepted cultural canon. To take a classic (and classical) example modern students forced to read the Aeneid almost invariably scoff at the fact that the plot elements are all so highly derivative of Homer, whereas to Virgil's own audience this just marked that he was throwing down the gauntlet and doing a full on epic, and everything derivative of other works (he took lines wholesale from other epics) just better integrated the work with the literary canon, provided an erudite game of "spot the reference", and worked towards the goal of making the work more perfect rather than more original.

I don't see our current cult of originality going anywhere anytime soon, if anything it will get more extreme before it gets
"better" as people, at least where I'm at, seem to have only more contempt for the past and its denizens every day, and a culture that doesn't respect the past is basically always going to have a fetish for originality. I like originality well enough, but I wish people could moderate there fixation with it enough to better appreciate other ways works of art and entertainment can be good. We've gotten to the point where episodes in a series of space operas intentionally modeled on heroic epic cycles get lambasted for being too derivative of previous episodes. Really? An intentionally cyclical thing made in homage of cyclical things repeated itself? How dare it?!

Meanwhile, in a tabletop RPG context, I really wish people would better appreciate not being original for basic practical reasons. When players are reliant on the descriptive ability and thoroughness of a game master for all their sensory perceptions having lots of things be as they expect them to be is a wonderful boon, even if that means being "unoriginal" or "tropey". It not only streamlines their correct perceiving and understanding of things, but it averts arguments over whether the person running the game failed to give them the needed information. It really does a disservice to "you can do anything" games if the setting and characters players interact with are routinely so disconnected from anything familiar that they have no idea what they should begin to attempt.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

With some additional thought, I think that the "tyranny of novelty" does not necessarily stem from a desire to make something new for the sake of making something new, but, rather, it often stems from a desire from creatives to make something of their own creation and sense of ownership. This may entail their own "unique" version of a pastiche setting - e.g., "this is my own version of a Hyboria-like setting" or "this is Greyhawk done right!" - or the desire to push the boundaries of an aesthetic in a way that they find fun - e.g., "it's like a fantasy Mad Max dialed up to eleven!"

This. From what I've seen, it's about ownership, or self-expression.

Going outside D&D (since we are in TTRPG General), what I've observed is not a "Tyranny of Novelty", but a "Tyranny of Conformity". Specifically, an aversion to new systems design, and a preference for conformity to existing systems. "Why not build this in 5e/PbtA/FATE/whatever system?" You see these people pop up whenever small and new designers float an idea for a new system, or advertise a new system that they're already creating. Not omnipresent and not the dominant tendency by any means, but just noticeable enough to be aggravating. Whether it's the same few people every time or if it's a growing sentiment, I don't know.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I tend to value subtle differences in the familiar as an artistic pursuit, so doing the same thing, but showing me a new side of it is often more valuable than something wholly novel. There are entire aesthetic movements centered on the idea of taking existing songs or stories, and performing them in ways that leaves the author's signature on them, enjoyed by discerning audiences.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Originality has had a cultural vogue in the West for a couple centuries now, and thanks to globalism can tyrannize the whole world in our current epoch. For most of human history it was, if anything, the opposite extreme. Historically originality was more often looked on as suspect, and "novelty" and it's cognates have at times even had a negative connotation (which is likely the root of the specific word "novelty" also meaning a trivial thing). In a culture that is to any degree traditional, appeals to established ways of doing things have great persuasive power and art and entertainment is likely to be appreciated for how well it works within, references, and acknowledges some sort of accepted cultural canon. To take a classic (and classical) example modern students forced to read the Aeneid almost invariably scoff at the fact that the plot elements are all so highly derivative of Homer, whereas to Virgil's own audience this just marked that he was throwing down the gauntlet and doing a full on epic, and everything derivative of other works (he took lines wholesale from other epics) just better integrated the work with the literary canon, provided an erudite game of "spot the reference", and worked towards the goal of making the work more perfect rather than more original.

I don't see our current cult of originality going anywhere anytime soon, if anything it will get more extreme before it gets
"better" as people, at least where I'm at, seem to have only more contempt for the past and its denizens every day, and a culture that doesn't respect the past is basically always going to have a fetish for originality. I like originality well enough, but I wish people could moderate there fixation with it enough to better appreciate other ways works of art and entertainment can be good. We've gotten to the point where episodes in a series of space operas intentionally modeled on heroic epic cycles get lambasted for being too derivative of previous episodes. Really? An intentionally cyclical thing made in homage of cyclical things repeated itself? How dare it?!

Meanwhile, in a tabletop RPG context, I really wish people would better appreciate not being original for basic practical reasons. When players are reliant on the descriptive ability and thoroughness of a game master for all their sensory perceptions having lots of things be as they expect them to be is a wonderful boon, even if that means being "unoriginal" or "tropey". It not only streamlines their correct perceiving and understanding of things, but it averts arguments over whether the person running the game failed to give them the needed information. It really does a disservice to "you can do anything" games if the setting and characters players interact with are routinely so disconnected from anything familiar that they have no idea what they should begin to attempt.

Even though I am pretty strongly anti-traditionalist, and have no love of nostalgia, I agree with most of this.

Tropes become tropes because they resonate. There is no reason not to use them.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Reproducibility is a big part of it too I think, traditionally if I could perform a piece of music written by someone else near perfectly, that was the main way in which people could hear it, assuming the original artist wasn't at hand. But today, if I can do a pretty good cover of like, a Taylor Swift song, you could literally just go and listen to the original Taylor Swift album recording instead, so my cover doesn't have meaningful utility in allowing you to hear the song.

I am vaguely reminded of the Tale of Genji, where characters are always calling back to older works of their time in order to convey how well read they are, and utilize the same works as a kind of shared cultural language to express themselves. This extends to the character's deploying intentional variations on poems and such, to twist the meaning in an artful way. We see this more broadly, where popular works iterating on folktales were opportunities for artists of the current generation to express themselves 'against' the backdrop of the existing traditional works, artfully twisting them to comment on their contemporary lives, or to explore new ideas, or even adapt them to new mediums.

 

[Lanefan]

How many "normal fantasy kingdom" adventures do you need?

As many as I can get my mucky little mitts on.

I still strip away the baked-in setting backstory and replace them with my own, but while jungle adventures and desert adventures and other exotic-locale are reasonably easy to find and are often quite good they still - if to make any sense - need to be placed in the appropriate environment, which in my campaign is hellishly far away from the usual adventuring area. Which means that to use them I either have to convert* them to a more generic setting or give the party long-range travel capabilities to get to them (and back!); and once that long-range travel cat gets out of the bag it ain't going back in.

* - it's much easier IME to convert a generic-setting adventure to an exotic-locale one than to do the reverse.

 

[jasper]

Novelty or retelling are neither good nor bad. It is how WELL you WRITE/ACT/ ETC in making something Excellent. There is a lot of crap out there at all the time. But depending on how smooth it is, some people will think it is great. Others will think it is chunky.

 

[Aldarc]

This. From what I've seen, it's about ownership, or self-expression.

Going outside D&D, I recall that the reason why "pastiche real world but fantasy" was even a thing was because Robert Howard didn't want to be bothered with doing real world research to write the sort of historical fiction stories that he wanted to write. Coming at it from another angle now that fantasy is much bigger than it was in Howard's time, I can see how many writers/publishers in our TTRPG hobby may even want something like another setting but not wanting to be bothered with getting the lore right.