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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 3441664" data-attributes="member: 48692">I think I'm on a different wavelength than many people.  For me, "D&D Fantasy" doesn't mean writing a novel as if it were a campaign-it means using all the standard elements of the genre (magic, sentient nonhuman races, medieval weapons and armor, a pseudo-medieval setting based on the 11th-15th centuries, etc.) and setting the stories in there.  For instance, this one British author wrote a variation on The Count of Monte Cristo set in the modern 21st century, as opposed to the 20th.  A Japanese anime sets the story in the far future.  Who's to say you can't do the same thing with D&D fantasy by changing some of the characters into elves or dwarves, have some of them know magic or own actual magical items, or something like that?  If you wanted to write A Tale of Two Cities, what's to stop you from using Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate as stand-ins for London and Paris?  If you want to write Macbeth, why not substitute something like the Kingdom of Nyrond for Scotland, and have the villain tighten his grip on power and further confirm his descent into tyranny by making alliances with orcs and goblins to oppress the people?  Not every story needs to be about a party of adventurers or something that would fit as a campaign; surely it can't be that difficult to write something like Romeo and Juliet, remaking the cast as two feuding clans of dwarves instead of two feuding clans of humans?  It's not exactly the sort of thing you'd gather around the gaming table for on a Friday night, but it could still make for a touching story.  Monsters like storm giants, lammasu, ki-rin, chimeras, cloakers, can all play their parts.  If you enjoy the comic book The Crow, recast the protagonist as a revenant or some similar undead creature.  Need something to substitute for Caliban?  How about a hill giant or a gnoll?  Who's to say a Doctor Frankenstein-like wizard couldn't have accidentally given life and sentience to an iron or stone golem instead of a flesh one?  This is what I mean by using D&D fantasy in new ways-stories that don't just revolve around what people normally come up with in game campaigns.  Such things can be enjoyed, of course, but who's to say that adventurers have to be the only focus of a story set in a fantasy world with all the stereotypes of pseudo-Tolkien RPG fantasy?  Don't just write from the perspective of a DM creating a plotline for his players-the D&D motifs could be used for so much more...</blockquote>

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