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

[SableWyvern]

Ever read OD&D, Grew Hawk boxed set (1981). Gritty Points of Light type vibe.
Very different to say FR vibe.

The only Forgotten Realms product I've read closely is FR5 The Savage Frontier and it is absolutely a "gritty points of light type vibe".

 

[Zardnaar]

The only Forgotten Realms product I've read closely is FR5 The Savage Frontier and it is absolutely a "gritty points of light type vibe".

Early FR could be like that. Then it became Renaissance Faire people are more familiar with.

Older D&D had a different vibe.

 

[Clint_L]

I think we’re all agreed that D&D is and has always been a fantasy mutt, but I also think the OP has a point in asserting that the steampunk aesthetic is an increasingly pervasive element.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But my point is that Conan-looking barbarians and giant apes and dragons and faux-Vikings and chainmail-bikini Amazon princesses are Medieval Fantasy.

Crashed spaceships and laser guns are not

And my point is all these things are equally not remotely medieval, but they are all very much D&D.

This thread is all "I am going to define something that is not remotely Medieval as Medieval and complain that it is turning into something that I am going to call Steampunk even though it is not remotely like Steampunk".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But most of us (although "I" know my history) aren't trying to recreate actual specific periods.

Sure. That's fine.

But don't try and claim that it's medieval unless you are actually doing medieval. Call it genericfantasyland or something.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think we’re all agreed that D&D is and has always been a fantasy mutt, but I also think the OP has a point in asserting that the steampunk aesthetic is an increasingly pervasive element.

Top hats and bustles? Nope, not seeing any of that.

What we are seeing are two things. A recognition that all that magic the PCs wield must have an effect on the society they live in. I.e. Magitech, which is most definitely not Steampunk. And a recognition that since D&D fashions have never been historical, you can make your art anything that looks cool at the time of publication.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

But most of us (although "I" know my history) aren't trying to recreate actual specific periods.

I think it was in this thread that I mention it, we take a period of history, find some other stuff we like, put it in the campaign bowl and mix it all up.

Its just a game.

Most of us would not want to recreate actual history, people had limited agency in much of history, nobles could outright murder lower class people and get away with it as long as they could frame it in defence of their honour.
Most games have a very flat social structure in compared to the actual medieval or premodern period.
Even the Expanse, which I believe started out as a game, show its background by the number of jobs that would be done by remote controlled or autonomous or semi-autonomous systems.

 

[Autumnal]

The ability of upper classes to murder people in lower classes actually varied a bunch by time and place. The Holy Roman Empire had a court system that did make it feasible for commoners to press complaints against nobles, and to win; it aimed explicitly at resolutions everyone could live with rather than an objective guilt or innocence. Really unchecked lordly power is more an early modern thing than a medieval one. There were plenty of rotten lords before that, but in times of smaller populations and fewer resources, there were practical limits on how tyrannical you could be before your seeds and neighbors decided you were too much trouble and did something to you to make you stop. Larger populations and more stuff made the potential power gradient worse, and absolutist ideologies encouraged using it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The ability of upper classes to murder people in lower classes actually varied a bunch by time and place. The Holy Roman Empire had a court system that did make it feasible for commoners to press complaints against nobles, and to win; it aimed explicitly at resolutions everyone could live with rather than an objective guilt or innocence. Really unchecked lordly power is more an early modern thing than a medieval one. There were plenty of rotten lords before that, but in times of smaller populations and fewer resources, there were practical limits on how tyrannical you could be before your seeds and neighbors decided you were too much trouble and did something to you to make you stop. Larger populations and more stuff made the potential power gradient worse, and absolutist ideologies encouraged using it.

All true, I was giving an extreme example of the power disparity. There was still a lot of.considerations of rank, privilage and station to track.
Servants and labourers had different experiences than farmers, tradespeople and burghers before you ever get into the graduations of nobility.
We tend to flatten the social hierachy a lot.

 

[Emerikol]

How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?

I am 50 this year, and we were assigned The Hobbit in 5th grade. We also had the Bashki Rankin-Bass Hobbit and Return of the King movies on television when I was a kid.

That said, my parents were both fantasy and sci-fi fans so in my household I never had to "discover" Tolkien.

I'm 57, I remember those films but I'd heard of LOTR before I heard of those specifically. I went to the library very regularly when really young but mostly did Hardy Boys and then got into Isaac Asimov. So you could say my now lifelong interest in the fantasy genre coincided with D&D. I may have been reading before I started D&D but not by much.