Fantasy becoming too fantastic...?

[DragonLancer]

Y'know, I'm just wondering if I'm alone here, but with current trends it just seems that there's not much room for ye olde classic fantasy. I guess what I mean is that with the barrage of splat books going down the road of "who wants orcs and goblins when you could have dire-fiendish-half-dragon-githyanki" does anyone else kinda long for the simple stuff? You know, the merry band of heroes out to rescue the damsel in distress, maybe some goblins, a dragon perhaps, an evil wizard, and wits necessary--not nuke like magic items?

Just a thought.

I agree. A change is nice now and again, but I prefer my fantasy to be more Tolkien with base races and creatures. Half/templates are an occasional nice addition but they shouldn't be everywhere.

Give me classic fantasy anyday.

 

[Piratecat]

I dunno. Piratecats story hour, for example, featured half-troll illithid as one big evil dude, and it worked out real fantastic.

Ah, but the trick there is that he wasn't a "Half-Troll Illithid" by name; he was a monster, like any other, and I did my darndest to hide the crunchy meta-gamey nature of the monster.


I'm a firm believer that the important thing about traditional fantasy tropes is the theme, not the mechanics that you use to achieve that theme. Truth be told, there's nothing inherently different to me between an orc and a half-illithid fiendish flesh golem; they're both monsters the PCs can come across. As long as you don't emphasize the silly and make the mechanics obvious, you'll be concentrating on character and mood and lethality in both cases.

 

[Henry]

So, before I go wallow in solipsist debauchery, I just want to say that I'm glad to hear that I'm not so terribly alone in my longing for ye olde classic fantasy.

I just guess that for me over the top isn't really all that fantastic.

In my opinion, there's no such thing as "too fantastic" fantasy. Star Wars, for instance, shoved its boundaries from Sci-fi clear into fantasy; fantasy is the "upper bound" refuge of stories that are too "out there" for any other genres, so "too fantastic" is to me like saying, "too infinite."

However, there's also nothing wrong with a desire to return to the old classics. It's that desire that pushed Lucas and Spielberg for instance to attempt Indiana Jones, a return itself to the old serials that they loved in their younger days. If the classics had no appeal, they wouldn't have become popular in the first place.

The trick is you have to know your audience. If you want a successful return of the classics, you have to find a new twist on the same idea, and implement it. Star Wars was nothing more than a "rescue the princess from the evil knight in the castle" take set in outer space. Ravenloft was Count Dracula with swords and spells. Find a way to make half-elves, half-orcs, and half-lings interesting to other people other than just to say, "because they are," and there's an appeal.


Good example: Dragonmarks. In Eberron, you have races like Kalashtar, Changelings, Warforged. Why on earth would someone want that tried-and-stale half-elf? Because that half-elf has a network of support behind him in the form of his own people, AND because he could have a special mark that all those fru-fru warforged and shifters can have, one that makes him an ACTUAL part of HISTORY. Find the twist, and implement it.

 

[librarius_arcana]

Y'know, I'm just wondering if I'm alone here, but with current trends it just seems that there's not much room for ye olde classic fantasy. I guess what I mean is that with the barrage of splat books going down the road of "who wants orcs and goblins when you could have dire-fiendish-half-dragon-githyanki" does anyone else kinda long for the simple stuff? You know, the merry band of heroes out to rescue the damsel in distress, maybe some goblins, a dragon perhaps, an evil wizard, and wits necessary--not nuke like magic items?

Just a thought.

Yeah me too,

 

[Psion]

No, you're not alone.

Indeed. If I took a screenshot at this very moment, you'd see there's a thread about "D&D being too D&D" about 4 threads down.

I propose another thread category, "Validate me" or something like that.

That sounds about right.

 

[Wayside]

Ah, but the trick there is that he wasn't a "Half-Troll Illithid" by name; he was a monster, like any other, and I did my darndest to hide the crunchy meta-gamey nature of the monster.

I'm a firm believer that the important thing about traditional fantasy tropes is the theme, not the mechanics that you use to achieve that theme. Truth be told, there's nothing inherently different to me between an orc and a half-illithid fiendish flesh golem; they're both monsters the PCs can come across. As long as you don't emphasize the silly and make the mechanics obvious, you'll be concentrating on character and mood and lethality in both cases.

This is pretty much what I was going to say. The "problem," if there is one, is more with how D&D mechanics represent things as dire-fiendish-half-dragon-githyanki, which is sort of the same as going around describing yourself as a dire-Irish-half-Italian-Korean (or whatever you happen to be) in your everyday life. As soon as you get past D&D's heavy emphasis on labels, things seem a lot less ridiculous. Let the mechanics do their job--beyond that, how they impact your narrative is entirely up to you. (Which is another way of saying "metagame as much or as little as you want.")

 

[zoroaster100]

I think the trick is to have the game feel like classic fantasy, regardless of what the stats are that you as the DM use. In other words, it all goes back to the story. It has to capture the imagination of the players. The description helps tell the story. The stats are just the mechanics to resolve the player's actions in combat. Don't let the stats dominate the game. Instead focus on the story. Make sure the story draws on the iconic legends and archetypes of human culture/religion/mythology/symbology. That is what makes for good fantasy. When Tolkien wrote his books about elves, goblins and dragons, his vision for these beings drew on what came before, but reinvented them with new twists. If he called his elves celestial humans, or if he he called Sauron a half-fiend/half-lycanthrope fiendish ogre expert level 20, it would not have been as inspiring. Any DM can do that using the stats provided by the game. But the DM must make the story and descriptionss make the game into the kind of classic fantasy that lights up the imagination.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Nod. And as someone complained in "Amadeus": "too many notes" can be a problem.

Err...that someone was Salieri complaining about Mozart. I don't think many people today would make the same complaint about Mozart. So to use that as a quote kinda works against your point.

 

[The Shaman]

Y'know, I'm just wondering if I'm alone here, but with current trends it just seems that there's not much room for ye olde classic fantasy. I guess what I mean is that with the barrage of splat books going down the road of "who wants orcs and goblins when you could have dire-fiendish-half-dragon-githyanki" does anyone else kinda long for the simple stuff?

I think too many different kinds of monsters and humanoids strains credulity, so I tend to limit the list of each that are present in my fantasy games.

The funny thing is, as Piratecat astutely alludes to, is that a dire-fiendish-half-dragon-githyanki isn't really "fantastic" in and of itself: it's just a collection of mechanics grafted to one another. If (1) there's an interesting, involving backstory as to how that monster comes to exist, what it's motivations are, and what its place is in the setting, and (2) the game master doesn't overuse templeted monsters just for the sake of coming up with "something new" in every encounter, then the ability to use templates and character levels to create unique monsters is one of the best features of 3e D&D, IMO.

The problem may be that some game masters and quite a few writers and designers use templeted monsters as a means of creating oddball challenges instead of as a tool to add depth to the setting. From what I read in adventures and such, too many of these three or four template monsters of whatever with levels in another two or three classes seem ridiculously contrived solely for the purpose of offering a tactical challenge, rather than as a means of exploring the setting conceits.

By way of contrast, in my three-oh game I created a new race, known as "earth elders." I peppered the campaign with rumors about these near-mythical beings, so the players were pretty pumped and a bit intimidated when they finally encountered this secretive, mystical race - and they never knew that the elders were mechanically composed of half-earth elemental dwarf sorcerers. The underlying mechanics were essentially invisible within the fluff. Earth elders were fantastic not because of their mechanics, but because of their place in the setting, as a feature of the game-world.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

True, but nonsensical lists of templates make for nice soundbites.

D&D has always had a over the top side to it. Even before 3E. We had Wondrous Inventions for basic D&D, those wonderland modules by Gygax, etc.. All kinds of crazy stuff has been going on for since D&D was born.

But when it's time to gripe, it's the half-vampire gelatinous cube ninja of legend :\

You are so right. It's OK for people to gripe, but it undermines their point when they toss out those ridiculous combos as examples of what is out there for modern D&D. Really, how many such combos has anyone seen used for a non-parody adventure or setting?

Further, you make an even more cogent point when you mention the "Dungeonland" modules of Gygax. Weird and oddball stuff has always been part of D&D - uh, the beholder, a floating beach ball with eyestalks, is now considered "classic fantasy"? Owlbears? Don't get me wrong; I like these critters. But quite often when this kind of topic comes up, the weirdo stuff from earlier versions of the game is somehow overlooked while the half-fiend/half-dragon/vampiric/tauric black pudding gets trotted out as an example of how egregious the current edition is with its oddities.