D&D General D&D is now Steampunk (poll)

[Reynard]

I think there's a portion of the fanbase who wants D&D to be Mercer-punk, with some elements of Magic the Gathering occasionally tossed in. But, yes, magic in D&D mainly serves to mimic modern technology.

That's weird, I don't have any modern tech that let's me read minds. But modern tech is WAY better at mass transit and communication.

I don't think D&D magic aims to replicate modern technology at. I actually think it is kind of aimless outside of "how do we use this in a fight?" to be honest.

Also, what in the world is Mercer-punk?

 

[Laurefindel]

Again, I think the period from the early/mid 80s to the early 90s, D&D WAS medieval fantasy -- at least insofar as one might categorize it by its aesthetic and the kinds of lore and stories it was trying to tell. But before that it was decidedly S&S and Weird, and Ultimately broke to be its own genre as it's influence on video game fantasy became apparent. At that point, D&D and CRPGs, then later MMOs, were a self reinforcing sub genre best described as "D&D Fantasy."

I agree with your rationale but I’m starting to see the question from the opposite perspective.

The evolution of D&D and similar games, CRPG, and other media are still evolving under the umbrella of « Medieval Fantasy ». Only, subgenres are getting better and better defined, so it’s not that D&D is growing out of Medieval Fantasy; it’s that settings that do respect the medieval paradigm and better represent specific eras of the Middle Ages are becoming better- defined sub-genres of Medieval Fantasy.

[Edit] TL;DR: D&D isn’t being better defined as a sub-genre away from Medieval Fantasy. Things like Arthurian Fantasy are being better defined as their own sub-genre of Medieval Fantasy.

 

[Reynard]

I agree with your rationale but I’m starting to see the question from the opposite perspective.

The evolution of D&D and similar games, CRPG, and other media are still evolving under the umbrella of « Medieval Fantasy ». Only, subgenres are getting better and better defined, so it’s not that D&D is growing out of Medieval Fantasy; it’s that settings that do respect the medieval paradigm and better represent specific eras of the Middle Ages are becoming better- defined sub-genres of Medieval Fantasy.

I mean, maybe, but very, very few games (TTRPG or CRPG) make any real effort toward anything more than a medieval veneer.

 

[Laurefindel]

I mean, maybe, but very, very few games (TTRPG or CRPG) make any real effort toward anything more than a medieval veneer.

Yes, but what I’m trying to say is that a very thin Medieval veneer is all it takes to be Medieval Fantasy.

The more specific you get, including more historically accurate to the Middle Ages, the more of your own sub-genre of Medieval Fantasy you become.

But that doesn’t invalidate less accurate settings from being Medieval Fantasy

 

[Reynard]

Yes, but what I’m trying to say is that a very thin Medieval veneer is all it takes to be Medieval Fantasy.

The more specific you get, including more historically accurate to the Middle Ages, the more of your own sub-genre of Medieval Fantasy you become.

Is WoW medieval fantasy? I don't think so.

 

[Laurefindel]

Is WoW medieval fantasy? I don't think so.

In my mind it is. It still is more Medieval Fantasy than any other broad fantasy category I can think of.

WoW is not like D&D, which is not like Pendragon, which is not like The Witcher. They all tend toward their own more or less niche sub-genre of Medieval Fantasy, but they’re all still just as Medieval Fantastic as the other.

Just like The Expanse is not less science-fiction than Star Trek, which is not less science fiction than Stargate

 

[Reynard]

WoW is not like D&D,

I think this is our fundamental disagreement.

 

[Laurefindel]

They are much closer to one another than any of them from Pendragon but no, I don’t see them as the same.

 

[TiQuinn]

Im surprised to hear that people never considered D&D to be medieval fantasy. Fantasy genre and subgenres are much better defined now. But where I come from, D&D was the very incarnation of what Medieval Fantasy was.

No one had any expectations of medieval fantasy respecting history; it was fantasy after all. « Fantasy » was basically referring to any fiction that wasn’t realistic or implied to be happening on earth. It was a pretty broad genre with two pretty broad sub-genres of their own; science-fiction and medieval fantasy. There wasn’t much else that was well defined, and almost everything else was described in relation to those two (« a kind of sci-fy but… » or « medieval fantasy except that… »). D&D was exactly what people thought of medieval fantasy; a fantasy that isn’t sci-fi and had wizards, castles, and swords. It really didn’t take much more to be « medieval ».

I’ve never had a problem with folks seeing it as having some of the trappings of the Middle Ages with European style castles and armor and the like, even if it was from what we’ve seen in movies rather than what it may have been in reality. But even from the beginnings, it was always so much more. The D&D art that I grew up with was never consistent to any particular style. The first cover I remember was a Conan looking character in a horned helmet leaping at a red dragon. The modules I played had crazy stuff like giant apes and crashed spaceships with laser guns, Mad Hatter monks and Jabberwock dragons too. The medieval imagery was always just more bits in the greater soup.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

It seems that "medieval fantasy" no longer applies to D&D. It's more of a steampunk game, despite some of the art. Here's why:

• Default technology: the SRD offers PCs muskets, pistols, and airships.
• The Clarke rule: sufficiently advanced technology seems to be everywhere, given the number of classes and subclasses using magic.
• Species: the English word is post-middle ages, but Darwin made it pretty official in the 19th century.
• Cosmopolitan travel: it's not impossible to see a halfling and a dragonborn hanging out together, one of which could have arrived quickly, from distant lands, via Broom of Flying, Carpet of Flying, or the aforementioned airship. These travel modes rival, if not exceed, the speed of a locomotive engine.
• Industrial labor: cantrips, i.e. unlimited-use-spells, can do things like purify steel (acid splash), perform hard labor (mage hand), refrigerate (ray of frost), generate electricity (shocking grasp), and heat a boiler (fire bolt). In addition, rock gnomes can create, at will, "clockwork devices."
• Mass production: there's no mention of scarcity in the weapon, armor, or gear tables. (It does seem to apply loosely to magic items.)
• Apparatus of the Crab: enough said.

Agree? Disagree? Why isn't D&D now a steampunk game by default?

Disagree. Everyone I know plays as fantasy. I’m not going to say medieval because I don’t know enough to say that is accurate. However some version or LotR, Conan, and Norse and Greek myth all mixed together is about right. No steampunk