Does D&D even have a component of "midieval" anymore?

[Hussar]

But, isn't it interesting that SF is full of writers whose aliens are not simple humans in drag? Not every SF universe is just bumpy headed humans like Star Trek. Many SF writers, like Jerry Pournelle and David Niven, for example, create alien races which are truly alien. The Moties in The Mote in God's Eye aren't just funny humans, they are very alien. The aliens in Ender's game are not remotely human. The aliens in Haldeman's Forever War are decidedly different. The Guildmasters in Dune, while they might have been human once, certainly aren't now.

SF is full of races that aren't simply humans that can see in the dark, which is almost always how D&D elves are portrayed.

/edited to add

50 years after Tolkien's seminal work, we've had hundreds, if not thousands, of look-alike fantasy novels flood the genre. Tolkienesque demi-humans (to use an old term) can be found all over the place. Heck, despite 30 years of D&D, our core races are pretty much ripped straight from the Professor's works.

If, after all this time, and all this material, you still play with Tolkienesque settings, yes, I say that shows a lack of creativity. There's a huge volume of work out there that has nothing to do with Middle Earth that is every bit as creative and interesting. It would be nice if we could see that sort of thing in the game. We're finally starting to.

 

[Celebrim]

But, isn't it interesting that SF is full of writers whose aliens are not simple humans in drag?

I'm afraid that this is going to turn into one of those 'Am too.', 'Am not.', 'Am too.' discussions. I disagree, but I don't claim I can develop an argument that proves I'm right. In my opinion, all the aliens are just humans in drag and generally the more we see of them the more obvious this becomes.

There have been some attempts at truly alien aliens by the better SF writers. One of the more convincing ones to me have been the Ruhk in Gordon R. Dickenson's 'The Alien Way'. The froglike aliens in Amy Thompson's 'The Color of Distance' were pretty well done as well, but share alot of the same problems as Card's 'Piggies'.

I'm much less convinced by your suggestions, and in particular the Buggers in Ender's Game, the aliens in Forever War, and the Guildmasters in Dune are not portrayed deeply enough to make any statements about them one way or the other. They are kept suitably vague so as we can't really say anything about them. The mating habits and life cycle of the Piggies in 'Speaker of the Dead' are bizarre, and we get to see alot more of them than we do the Buggers, but they are pretty darn shallow and anthromorphic for all that (as Card himself admits in the text). And I know that this is going to scandalize various fans, but the muties are IMO a badly told joke.

 

[TerraDave]

This thread reminds me of the old usenet days...

One thing that I may have missed. What PCs actually do in play:

They kill mostly intelligent creatures and take their stuff.

I think at its core the game is designed--with built in rationals for modern players--so that the charecters can, er, get medieval.

 

[gizmo33]

If, after all this time, and all this material, you still play with Tolkienesque settings, yes, I say that shows a lack of creativity.

So by the same token if you play in a Wild West setting that still has cowboys and saloons then it also shows a lack of creativity? Or maybe James Bond stories should change it up now so that he's working in a zoo? It's not clear to me from your post why "Tolkienesque" somehow has a different requirement than other genres in order to qualify as creative. I personally am not interested in cowboys/saloons, but I wouldn't go so far as to blame that on Western Writers because they aren't adding kobolds to their settings.

 

[Delta]

But, isn't it interesting that SF is full of writers whose aliens are not simple humans in drag?

Yes, there are some genius SF writers who have invoked truly non-human alien races and cultures, through a focused effort at inventive creation.

But as soon as you get a hoi-poloi slice of gamers playing such races as PCs, they're going to come off as slightly flavored humans. Trying to resist that in the construction of PC races is really futile.

 

[Zoatebix]

They were exceptional, and yet, they didn't do what you said that people did. Wallace was already minor nobility and became . . . outlawed minor nobility. Joan was a peasant, and became a military leader for a extraordinarily brief period, and then she was betrayed and killed. So you have a pair of examples, neither of which really support the idea that social advancement is something that is commonplace (as appears to be the case in the default D&D world), and say little concerning the social divisions between say, commoners and nobility (which the default D&D assumption simply glosses over).

Here's an example - Alice Chaucer, Geoffrey's granddaughter, was a Duchess. The poet's parents were pretty well off but still middle-class, and before that there doesn't seem to be much goin' on. Still, going from obscurity to duchess in 4 or 5 generations isn't half bad. Not quite D&D speed or "commonplace", but shocking to someone with a typical conception of what Medieval social mobility was like...
-George

 

[Zoatebix]

Because medieval is a little bit nasty, yet also something you can romanticize a bit. It provides a logical underpinning for sword combat and riding steeds, the existence of castles, and a general worldview that encompasses ogres and dangerous imps. It's a place where a man who can take on a whole platoon himself, or incinerate it with a snap of his fingers, can potentially stare down a king. It also has a strong social division, to which wandering adventurers represent a sharp contrast. It's a place where killing a dragon is legal claim to its hoard. Killing a king can be a legal claim to his kingdom, if you can hold onto it.

Well said! That's enough to make me want to break out my dice right now.

I don't enjoy D&D games where it's assumed that the world operates like high medieval Europe did, simply because such an assumption seems to me to be essentially contrary to everything I like best about fantasy. I like strange worlds and weird tales, not leaden rules about plausible social structures.

I totally dig this post, too. I wish I were around last week so I could have discussed in a more timely manner.

 

[gizmo33]

Not quite D&D speed or "commonplace", but shocking to someone with a typical conception of what Medieval social mobility was like...

The first place I'd look for "rags to riches" stories would be in the rather undocumented early beginnings of any given kingdom (like Rurik in early Russia). I think once socieities get established, then mobility is more difficult and documentation gets better - leading to a somewhat expected circular reasoning as far as what documented history can provide. I think that for the medieval period, though, the expectation was that a person would have nobility in his background in order to rule - and I think in cases where the nobility wasn't clearly established, a wanna-be king would just make up a royal pedigree to suit the requirements of the mileiu.

I think a "medieval flavor rule" in this area would be a feat called "Long Lost Child of Nobility" that a PC can take later in life when they become a ruler - maybe a variant on the Leadership feat.

 

[GreatLemur]

So by the same token if you play in a Wild West setting that still has cowboys and saloons then it also shows a lack of creativity? Or maybe James Bond stories should change it up now so that he's working in a zoo? It's not clear to me from your post why "Tolkienesque" somehow has a different requirement than other genres in order to qualify as creative.

The problem is that "Tolkienesque" isn't a genre. The genre is fantasy. If a setting is "Tolkienesque", it's a fantasy setting that is borrowing heavily from Tolkien. That's cool with some people, obviously, but I for one have seen way too much of that kind of thing, already.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

The first place I'd look for "rags to riches" stories would be in the rather undocumented early beginnings of any given kingdom (like Rurik in early Russia). I think once socieities get established, then mobility is more difficult and documentation gets better - leading to a somewhat expected circular reasoning as far as what documented history can provide. I think that for the medieval period, though, the expectation was that a person would have nobility in his background in order to rule - and I think in cases where the nobility wasn't clearly established, a wanna-be king would just make up a royal pedigree to suit the requirements of the mileiu.

I think a "medieval flavor rule" in this area would be a feat called "Long Lost Child of Nobility" that a PC can take later in life when they become a ruler - maybe a variant on the Leadership feat.

Reading up on the early history of Venice (thank you John Julius Norwich!) and within the framework of the Byzantine Empire, there was quite a bit of social mobility to be found within there as well. Emperor Basil I that was a simple peasant from Armenia that became, well...the frickin' EMPEROR. Pluck & luck had a lot to do with it. Any ties to nobility that he had were tenuous or outright propaganda.