Embracing the standard fantasy tropes

[Brazeku]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

Forget fantasy tropes. They may have basis in myth, but really who cares? A lot of them haven't been investigated properly, and as a result we have literally decades worth of patching to try and force these old concepts into workable form. What do we get from that? 20 types of elf, inconsistent and incoherent societies that make no sense, a billion interpretations of how a halfling should be, and copious internet arguments. And for what?

Instead, get an idea of how social and physical processes work in the real world and apply consistent logic to them. You'll wind up with fewer disconnects AND a world which is intuitive to understand. I mean, as long as you do a good job, of course. Cohesion is important, as are the introduction of setting details that are:

a)interesting
b)usable in game

As for familiarity being required to play, well. What exactly is the point of a campaign world, anyway? Some people play to explore new themes. I do. I find settings which take the various fantasy tropes as the golden rule to be boring. If I want to play with those tropes, guess what - I already know them and don't need to buy a setting book to play them.

 

[Mallus]

Instead, get an idea of how social and physical processes work in the real world and apply consistent logic to them.

This advice is best used sparingly, if at all. Like Schedule 1 narcotics.

You'll wind up with fewer disconnects AND a world which is intuitive to understand.

This assumes the players understand the real-world social and physical processes that you've incorporated into/modeled in the game. From my experience this isn't a given. For every one gamer that understand the Bessemer process there are five that don't know their ass from their elbow.

I think a DM is on safer ground explicitly making their games into simulations of literature, comics and films. You know, stories.

 

[Brazeku]

This advice is best used sparingly, if at all. Like Schedule 1 narcotics.

This assumes the players understand the real-world social and physical processes that you've incorporated into/modeled in the game. From my experience this isn't a given. For every one gamer that understand the Bessemer process there are five that don't know their ass from their elbow.

I think a DM is on safer ground explicitly making their games into simulations of literature, comics and films. You know, stories.

Maybe I wasn't explicit or clear enough. I'm not talking about high, high levels of simulationism and pointless detail, I made sure to put in the caveat that the details included have to be usable (this implies something that isn't too complex to understand) and interesting.

For example: Making industrial steel isn't going to turn up so often in game (if ever), but if you need to work on some industrial history then a little knowledge of it can go a long way to producing something cool.

Also, nothing I said precludes the ability to create stories. This is about setting design. Literature, comics, and films were designed to tell stories, yes - and in so doing you are provided as much background as is necessary to tell whatever particular story your source material presented. And that's cool. But when you treat the elements of background introduced to tell a particular story as a developed reality, any other stories you tell will necessarily come to resemble whatever the initial source was. The logic will be internally consistent, but limited.

Now the problem comes when people attempt to expand these simulations into their own settings. Sometimes it can turn out well, if properly designed and care is taken in adding detail. But often, the material isn't examined, and clashes with newer additions because the underlying assumptions of the original content aren't consistent. Then you wind up with 200 page arguments on the nature of elves.

Tolkien is a good example. His literature has a lot of extra details which helped develop a complete world, which is why it was used as a great source for fantasy material. The problem is that people took elements of that world (now tropes) and incorporated them into new creations which were inconsistent with the rules of Tolkien's creation. So you wind up with an inconsistent mess. If the tropes were properly modified to fit in with the new world, then they would be acceptable - and they would also, very likely, cease to be tropes at all.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've heard this before and for the life of me I can't understand 'why not'?

From a the DM/content-creator perspective, making something 'different' need offer nothing more than a creative outlet. It can also represent a way of 'customizing' the game, personalizing it. Isn't that the big buzzword these days, 'user-created content'? Instead of whittling a stick people make their own level mods (or mash-ups, or YouTube videos, or ahem, role-playing game races). It's fun to let your imagination run wild, even if the end result is strictly derivative and not-especially-wild after all. In that context, being different is certainly enough.

If you manage to capture the imaginations of your players along with you, sure. However, you should make sure that you aren't confusing or boring them for the sake of "novelty".

I remember that I used to buy pretty much every Monster Compendium that got published by TSR - all so that I could throw the "monster of the week" against the players, something that they hadn't encountered before. But such monsters usually ended up being stats without contexts, random encounters without meaning. These days I am better, limit the variety of monsters the PC encounter in a campaign, and instead try to give those monsters the PCs do encounter more of a reason to exist.

Like I said, I have nothing at all against novelty - just novelty for novelty's sake.

And for players? Preferences vary. Most of the people I've played like the oddball deviances from the standard fantasy elements. It's something they look for in campaigns. And don't we see this willingness to embrace farther-out concepts mirrored in the success published supplements like Spelljammer and Planescape?

Those were brilliant settings - but in their case, the novel concepts certainly had a point, since they all tied into the strong thematic cores of the setting.

Though it probably should be noted that in the end these settings were not popular enough to remain in print...

I don't agree that ruthless efficiency is always the most important criteria when evaluating ones hobbies. Beside, if you always start with common tropes you tend to alienate those consumers who are sick to death of them.

Who still seem to be in the minority, if sales numbers are anything to judge by. If you are concerned about attracting customers, you should certainly come up with good reasons why not to use the standard fantasy tropes.

If you do come up with good reasons, more power to you. And the thoughts you put into answering this question will certainly not be in vain, and your setting will probably be stronger for it. But it is a question that you probably should ask yourself, regardless of the answer you will end up with.

So because it's, admittedly, more difficult to play in certain settings, you're questioning whether people should play in them at all?

Not at all. My thoughts were intended primarily for world-builders, not players. If you do get your players to try out and invest time in learning the details of one of these obscure but brilliant settings, whether Tekumel, Transhuman Space, Blue Planet or any of the others, I will say nothing but that I and many other GMs probably envy you deeply.

Instead I will say the following:

If you are a GM who wishes to create a new setting for your campaign world: Think carefully if you are able to come up with new material for new races, cultures and so forth to bring them alive in the minds of your players - and if you are, think again if you are able to communicate all this to your players efficiently enough to get them interested. If you can answer "yes" to both of these, by all means go ahead. But it is probably wise to think about this from the start.

If you are creating a setting intended for publication, remember that rejecting the established fantasy tropes for your setting has significant downsides, and that this alone will not help your setting stand out from the crowd. It is probably easier to make your setting interesting when you use at least some of these tropes instead of rejecting them outright. You can create an interesting setting that uses a multitude of new ideas and concepts - but doing so will involve considerably more effort, and in the end might condemn your world to obscurity.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Vanilla is a fine flavor.

But the notion that it should be the only flavor seems silly to me. Especially if that prevents one from enjoying ninja-chocolate chip.

Oh, it absolutely shouldn't be the only flavor. But the fact that people despise vanilla in favor of the ever-changing flavor of the month is what bugs me.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

-snip-

All of that is fine and well - if theme (in GNS terms, Narrativism) is a major goal for you and your group. (Aspects of it also apply to a limited subset of Simulationism, but your main point is 100% Narrativist)

In my experience, Narrativists are *extremely* thin on the ground, at least among people willing to play D&D; I run into hard-core Gamists and Simulationists (and Immersionists, and Cheetoists, to add the two major rpg.net additions to Forge theory) all the time, but almost never Narrativists. Similarly, in online discussions of D&D, where you're dealing with the absolute most dedicated fans, Narrativist issues very rarely come up.

SIMULATIONIST REASONS FOR TROPES
If you want to emulate specific existing media - the Lord of the Rings, say, or Final Fantasy 12 - you want to incorporate the trappings of that media. Even if those trappings are NOT consistent or realistic (both of the two examples listed are pretty good about this, the prevalence of powerful monsters and their relation or lack thereof to the economic system of Ivalice in FF12 being the biggest disconnect in either) or are not relevant to whatever theme ends up developing out of your game based on that source, you still want them because they remind you of the source material. And the source material is what you're simulating. This is the most obvious reason to use standard tropes - the very thing you're simulating is defined by them.

GAMIST REASONS FOR TROPES
For a gamist-supporting game, tropes are primarily useful to a) as a shorthand that helps you play the game more effectively and b) to speed up setup so you can get into the game. Since setting information is mostly color informing the gameplay, you don't want to take too much time with it. Gamists can get to the interesting tactical challenges faster if the setting is defined in broad strokes by standard tropes they already know.

IMMERSIONIST REASONS FOR TROPES
It's very hard to immerse yourself in something you don't know anything about! Using established tropes allows you to quickly get into the head of a character type, which you can then set about personalizing to taste. A 'standard elf' is familiar enough that you can start climbing around inside his head and asking questions about him as a person, and they protraying and internalizing the answers. Outside of standard tropes, you're practically developing (or learning) setting elements as you go along; an Immersionist wants to play a character, not a setting.

CHEETOIST REASONS FOR TROPES
Because reading the GM's pages of setting description is boring, man! The Cheetoist wants to roll some dice and pal around with friends. Standard tropes allow more involved players to explain the game to him - "It's like Star Wars" or "It's like Lord of the Rings" - so he can get down to the important business of chilling out, eating cheetos and swapping Monty Python quotes.

D&D is strongly geared toward Gamist support, its broad user base attracts a lot of Cheetoists (who, as a general rule, are not 'system matters' folks ), and it has a few words of Simulationist and Immersionist encouragement - almost all in the GM advice. It has very little support for, or encouragement of, Narrativism, and thus rarely attracts hardcore Narrativists (who DO tend to be 'system matters' folks).

Thus, giving a Narrativist argument against standard tropes in D&D (or the broader family of d20 games, most of which adopt similar stances) seems to me somewhat pointless.

 

[Mallus]

Maybe I wasn't explicit or clear enough. I'm not talking about high, high levels of simulationism and pointless detail, I made sure to put in the caveat that the details included have to be usable (this implies something that isn't too complex to understand) and interesting.

I missed the caveat. It sounded to me like you were coming from the school of setting design that believes you have to get the climatology right. My bad.

For example: Making industrial steel isn't going to turn up so often in game (if ever)

Never say ever.

Also, nothing I said precludes the ability to create stories.

True.

But when you treat the elements of background introduced to tell a particular story as a developed reality, any other stories you tell will necessarily come to resemble whatever the initial source was. The logic will be internally consistent, but limited.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, so I can't tell if I agree or not. I think you're assigning too much importance on internal consistency. Not every gamer, or even reader values it to the degree you seem to.

'Logic' is often less important than 'action', and new information that invalidates base assumptions are, in my experience, usually overlooked, unless it's relevant to beating whatever immediate problem the players are facing.

Now the problem comes when people attempt to expand these simulations into their own settings. Sometimes it can turn out well, if properly designed and care is taken in adding detail. But often, the material isn't examined, and clashes with newer additions because the underlying assumptions of the original content aren't consistent.

A lot of people simply don't care if the setting is an intricate clockwork affair. I know there's an audience for logical, well thought-out, extrapolated and imagined settings, and I'm not trying to dismiss them. But they represent a specific segment of the community, with pretty specific tastes. Generalizing from their tastes isn't going to result in insight.

Then you wind up with 200 page arguments on the nature of elves.

I attribute those to the West's overabundance of food, safety, and leisure time.

His literature has a lot of extra details which helped develop a complete world...

I take issue with that. Tolkien created a lovely mythology and counterfactual history. Saying he created a complete is pushing it. His writings on Middle Earth can rightly be called encyclopedic, but that doesn't make them encyclopedias.

 

[Brazeku]

Good discussion folks!

All of that is fine and well - if theme (in GNS terms, Narrativism) is a major goal for you and your group. (Aspects of it also apply to a limited subset of Simulationism, but your main point is 100% Narrativist.

In my experience, Narrativists are *extremely* thin on the ground, at least among people willing to play D&D; I run into hard-core Gamists and Simulationists (and Immersionists, and Cheetoists, to add the two major rpg.net additions to Forge theory) all the time, but almost never Narrativists. Similarly, in online discussions of D&D, where you're dealing with the absolute most dedicated fans, Narrativist issues very rarely come up.

Ah, the GNS. Actually I think the one which describes me best, personally, is an immersionist who craves new experiences.

SIMULATIONIST REASONS FOR TROPES
If you want to emulate specific existing media - the Lord of the Rings, say, or Final Fantasy 12 - you want to incorporate the trappings of that media. Even if those trappings are NOT consistent or realistic (both of the two examples listed are pretty good about this, the prevalence of powerful monsters and their relation or lack thereof to the economic system of Ivalice in FF12 being the biggest disconnect in either) or are not relevant to whatever theme ends up developing out of your game based on that source, you still want them because they remind you of the source material. And the source material is what you're simulating. This is the most obvious reason to use standard tropes - the very thing you're simulating is defined by them.

I can't argue against this, because it is 100% true. The thing is, when you are trying to simulate source material directly, you aren't really building a campaign setting, you're transcribing one. Additions and deviations from that material will frequently feel inauthentic, so it's best to adapt the tropes completely. In this case, setting design isn't really setting design, you're developing mechanics to work within a setting already created.

GAMIST REASONS FOR TROPES
For a gamist-supporting game, tropes are primarily useful to a) as a shorthand that helps you play the game more effectively and b) to speed up setup so you can get into the game. Since setting information is mostly color informing the gameplay, you don't want to take too much time with it. Gamists can get to the interesting tactical challenges faster if the setting is defined in broad strokes by standard tropes they already know.

Really heavy gamists generally don't care about tropes save for their mechanical impact. The gamist will spend his time learning relevant mechanics, the game world explanation for those mechanics is secondary.

The setting could be completely novel, but as long as the newer additions have mechanical impact, a gamist will enjoy it, and the mechanical advantages will provide an impetus for learning the world. For example, say you want to develop a society which is highly militaristic but also very diplomatic. From this, you derive a warrior class which is highly skilled in diplomacy and has new and novel uses for the skill in combat. This would appeal to a gamist, and also reflect a non-trope addition to the world which would promote a type of incidental background info absorption that you'll see in gamist players.

IMMERSIONIST REASONS FOR TROPES
It's very hard to immerse yourself in something you don't know anything about! Using established tropes allows you to quickly get into the head of a character type, which you can then set about personalizing to taste. A 'standard elf' is familiar enough that you can start climbing around inside his head and asking questions about him as a person, and they protraying and internalizing the answers. Outside of standard tropes, you're practically developing (or learning) setting elements as you go along; an Immersionist wants to play a character, not a setting.

This is actually why I was talking about using the real world as a base. We are all humans, and have at least a basic understanding of human nature. Elves and so on are really little more than humans with a narrower focus. The fact is, that as long as you don't go right outside of human experience, you can invent any new race or creature and an immersionist can riff off of it. Not only this, but as an immersionist, I find that experiencing the way a character interacts with a novel setting to be highly rewarding - character actions are defined as much by nature as by environment and the interaction between the two. It may interest you that I actually only allow humanoid races in any of my campaigns because everything else is very difficult to design setting for, and even if you are successful it's interesting only as a brief novelty as opposed to serial play.

CHEETOIST REASONS FOR TROPES
Because reading the GM's pages of setting description is boring, man! The Cheetoist wants to roll some dice and pal around with friends. Standard tropes allow more involved players to explain the game to him - "It's like Star Wars" or "It's like Lord of the Rings" - so he can get down to the important business of chilling out, eating cheetos and swapping Monty Python quotes.

It's not boring if you make it AWESOME! This is more of a quality thing, I find. You can probably reduce any setting description down to two or three words to provoke interest.

D&D is strongly geared toward Gamist support, its broad user base attracts a lot of Cheetoists (who, as a general rule, are not 'system matters' folks ), and it has a few words of Simulationist and Immersionist encouragement - almost all in the GM advice. It has very little support for, or encouragement of, Narrativism, and thus rarely attracts hardcore Narrativists (who DO tend to be 'system matters' folks).

Thus, giving a Narrativist argument against standard tropes in D&D (or the broader family of d20 games, most of which adopt similar stances) seems to me somewhat pointless.

My argument isn't really narrativist. My argument is more that if we want the standard tropes, those products exist. I have played them and GMed them many times. But if you want to design something new, make a new setting, build a world - then you should start at the beginning.

In a little while I'm going to respond to Mallus too. I just need to get some foods in me.

 

[Glyfair]

Although some small deviations are cool to give a setting something 'special', too many deviations from the 'norm' only make the 'suspension of disbelief' issues so large that the actual 'experience' and 'feel' for the campaign world is lost.

Even more than the "suspension of disbelief" issue, in my opinion, is the "learning curve" issue.

If I am looking to play in an RPG game and I find out I need to study to be able to play, then I'm likely to pass. Each player has his limits, of course. Most will handle a page of differences, very few will want to read a book the size of my high school history book.

 

[Brazeku]

All right, part 2!

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, so I can't tell if I agree or not. I think you're assigning too much importance on internal consistency. Not every gamer, or even reader values it to the degree you seem to.

The kicker is that the consistency doesn't have to be immediately apparent. You only need sidenotes in case players ask, so you're not stuck with having to invent things to cover holes in the campaign.

'Logic' is often less important than 'action', and new information that invalidates base assumptions are, in my experience, usually overlooked, unless it's relevant to beating whatever immediate problem the players are facing.

Of course this is true, but in my experience - especially when running a complicated campaign - courses of action are determined through looking at the broader situation. Whatever conflict the players may come across is derived from the setting in one sense or another, and if there are logical problems in the source material then players may make bad decisions.

This really comes up a lot when characters are, for example, trying to figure out the motivations of NPCs. If they make a knowledge check, you have to know what to tell them, and if they press further you want a sensible context.

A lot of people simply don't care if the setting is an intricate clockwork affair. I know there's an audience for logical, well thought-out, extrapolated and imagined settings, and I'm not trying to dismiss them. But they represent a specific segment of the community, with pretty specific tastes. Generalizing from their tastes isn't going to result in insight.

I'm not really aiming for an intricate clockwork affair. I want a world in which I get the sense that the world is alive, and inconsistencies break that feeling. That may not be what everyone is looking for in a game, but for people who love settings and buy settings I think it is important.

I attribute those to the West's overabundance of food, safety, and leisure time.

"Heh, could be," he says as he drinks five alive and relaxes in front of the computer.

I take issue with that. Tolkien created a lovely mythology and counterfactual history. Saying he created a complete is pushing it. His writings on Middle Earth can rightly be called encyclopedic, but that doesn't make them encyclopedias.

You're right, of course. It isn't a complete world, but it is a lot of information that can be drawn upon, probably enough to run an effective game.