D&D General D&D: Literally Don't Understand This

[mamba]

That's a good description of exactly what Journeys through the Radiant Citadel is. I'm not sure what history books you're reading if you think JttRC is an exact copy of real world history

eh, to me it stays too close to the modern real world for its settings. If that works for you, great, it is not what I am looking for

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I have recently been lamenting how my go-to MMO, Final Fantasy XIV has utterly lost its visual coherence. People in plate armour run alongside with people wearing modern or cyberpunk clothes scrolling their smartphones.

I don' think the issue is anachronism per se, it is about having coherent visual language, and anachronisms are part of it. That being said, I think it is perfectly fine, and even preferable to have different settings and minisettings that have their own visual language, so in that sense I have no issue with the Radiant Citadel pictures. But I think D&D setting always have been pretty incoherent in this regard, and it seems to be getting worse. In Forgotten Realms, Exandria etc medieval and Victorian fashions are seen side by side, and there is no attempt to establish any sort of coherence. And this does not seem like an intentional choice like the more modern aspect are with Eberron or indeed like with some of these minisettings mentioned in this thread, it is more like the creators just grabbing one this from here and another there and mushing them together without any thought whether they form a coherent whole.

 

[Remathilis]

C'mon Umbran, first you make an historical based argument--that didn't work--so now you're making an ahistorical based argument.

Yes, the shoes are anachronistic. But, the entire game is ahistorical, so nothing in it is anachronistic. We don't need 1,000 years of elevated shoe history to justify the presence of stiletto heels in Dungeons& Dragons. Indeed, we could have stop lights, pay phones and garbage trucks.

The reverse is often true as well. Think about how many technologic futuristic fantasy games (like Final Fantasy 7 for instance) have characters with advanced firearms next to dudes with swords and spears. No modern warrior would go into combat today with a greatsword, but Cloud with buster sword can fight guards with semiautomatic rifles and win. That's I think part of the allure of fantasy now, an anachronistic mixture of times and places.

 

[Umbran]

C'mon Umbran, first you make an historical based argument--that didn't work--so now you're making an ahistorical based argument.

Because both arguments have validity. Which argument is appealing may depend on the reader.
It is kind of like having arguments about design from both a mechanical, and aesthetic point of view.

Yes, the shoes are anachronistic. But, the entire game is ahistorical, so nothing in it is anachronistic. We don't need 1,000 years of elevated shoe history to justify the presence of stiletto heels in Dungeons& Dragons. Indeed, we could have stop lights, pay phones and garbage trucks.

Yep. But if historicity matters to some individuals, there's some precedent.

 

[Cadence]

These are depictions of Njinga Mbande the Warrior 'Queen' of Ndongo and Matamba who fought the Portuguese in the 17th century and is remembered as "Mother of Angola".

Anyway I picked her specifically because the Gullah-Gechee people mentioned above by @Levistus's_Leviathan have been traced to the Angola-Congo area. So Note her depiction and clothing as compared to those in Radiant citadel.

I'm thinking of the 4,000 BCE Sumerians, 3,000 years of Egypt compressed down to one time, pseudo-Europeans using a random mishmash of 6 centuries and dozens of countries of technology and fake armor and worshipping Greek gods from a millennial and a half earlier, etc... all regularly commingling in lots of official products. If nothing else, timewise, this is only a couple hundred years off.

 

[Remathilis]

Let me share with you an actual picture from an actual D&D book

What is this a picture of? It looks positively Victorian. He's not even remotely looking like a character whose contemporaries to a knight and a wizard. He looks like a solicitor who got locked in a vampire's castle!

Yet this is the psionicist art from 1997's Domains of Dread, the last 2e Ravenloft book TSR put out before going bankrupt. You can argue if Ravenloft was ever supposed to be medieval (as domains vary in technology from iron age to Renaissance) but this dude doesn't look like any of those. He's straight out of the 1800s. He would be just fine in a Masque of the Red Death campaign. But here he is, ready to fight Strahd.

Standing next to him, a woman in high heels is absolutely acceptable. And he makes most Eberron adventures look antiquated. But genre trumps historical accuracy and he looks like he walked off the stage of a Universal horror film, so he fits far better in vest and tie than a doublet and hose...

 

[Umbran]

eh, to me it stays too close to the modern real world for its settings. If that works for you, great, it is not what I am looking for

Okay, so it isn't what you are looking for.

The question is how folks handle WotC making something that isn't for them. Do folks shrug, and move on to something that is for them, or do they make a big stink online over one piece of artwork they haven't seen before?

Specifically, do they make a big stink over this artwork, in the context of WotC having also done Quests from the Infinite Staircase and Tales from the Yawning Portal, which are chock full of classic goodness.

Classic goodness... that includes an adventure in a spaceship.

So, are you complaining about high heels in a fantasy game that also has... robots and laser guns? If not, you're good. Don't feel a need to defend yourself if you aren't doing that.

If you are doing that... well, that's a choice you get to think about, I guess.

 

[Cadence]

The laughter at his armor stops the moment Stormbringer comes out of the sheath...

But the laughter about how bad the writing describing it in the early stories was continues until we are hacked dow. ;-)

 

[TiQuinn]

I don’t think the problem is criticizing any single art piece or even product.

I tire of the editorializing that says this is wrong for everyone, that somehow the game is moving away from a clear, original, and pure goal. It’s a single opinion on a single subject blown up into something much, much bigger.

 

[Umbran]

But the laughter about how bad the writing describing it in the early stories was continues until we are hacked dow. ;-)

Anyone here ever read the Michael Moorcock short story, "The Stone Thing"?
In it, Moorcock parodies his own style of description and purple prose. Mercilessly.