Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
D&D is not general fantasy game. It is built towards what I personally consider a very particular type of fantasy action-adventure narrative built around GM funneled scenarios with a very detailed implied setting that defines how different sorts of creatures interact with each other. It's a pastiche, but a very particular one. It's just one largely shared by most fantasy video games, but not novels. Despite valiant efforts I have never played or seen anything that feels like the fantasy I grew up reading in a D&D game.
It's certainly not less specific than sorcerers who bind and bargain with demons with dark desires, supernatural teen romance, teenage superhero teams forging their identities, basically Hellboy, post-apocalyptic survival, criminals ascending the underworld in haunted cities, post cyberpunk focused on identity issues or any number of genre that are not dungeon fantasy.
Dungeon fantasy has much more mainstream appeal among gamers just like MCU movies have more mainstream appeal because more people value that specific experience. They know what they are getting. Just like a cop show. There's certainly a lot of diversity within that experience, just like there is for most games/genres.
At this point this feels like a point of faith, mostly based on some stuff some people said like damn near 15 years ago. Sure something like Dogs in the Vineyard or My Life With Master are pretty damn focused, but those aren't the games under discussion here. Most of the games under discussion are fairly new games explicitly built with a good deal of flex. They also contain very large sections about how to modify them to suit your group's preferences.
D&D says you can change anything and is considered flexible. Other games provide detailed instructions on the impact of various changes, sometimes even have complete books around customizing them yet are considered inflexible. It makes no sense to me personally.
It's certainly not less specific than sorcerers who bind and bargain with demons with dark desires, supernatural teen romance, teenage superhero teams forging their identities, basically Hellboy, post-apocalyptic survival, criminals ascending the underworld in haunted cities, post cyberpunk focused on identity issues or any number of genre that are not dungeon fantasy.
Dungeon fantasy has much more mainstream appeal among gamers just like MCU movies have more mainstream appeal because more people value that specific experience. They know what they are getting. Just like a cop show. There's certainly a lot of diversity within that experience, just like there is for most games/genres.
At this point this feels like a point of faith, mostly based on some stuff some people said like damn near 15 years ago. Sure something like Dogs in the Vineyard or My Life With Master are pretty damn focused, but those aren't the games under discussion here. Most of the games under discussion are fairly new games explicitly built with a good deal of flex. They also contain very large sections about how to modify them to suit your group's preferences.
D&D says you can change anything and is considered flexible. Other games provide detailed instructions on the impact of various changes, sometimes even have complete books around customizing them yet are considered inflexible. It makes no sense to me personally.
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