How Fantastical Do You Like Your Fantasy World?

[Ruin Explorer]

Traveller has always split the difference there. You have trillion credit squadron where its all capital ships and battle armor and entire nights of rolling dice in a single battle like a wargame. Then, you have a ragtag group on the edge of space being Firefly before Firefly was a thing. Not a ton connecting those things or bridging the difference.

I know you dropped a thread on Mass effect RPGs, did you ever come up with one you like best for it?

Yeah I want to respond properly to that - I'm still looking at options! So probably will respond later today.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I am at the point where less and less fantasy is interesting ...

I still enjoy simulation era (playing as round table knights in fictional england, or samurai in fictional asia)

I still enjoy a tight and narrow high fantasy (dragon riders of pern, vampire dark ages, blades in the darks duskovol, ars magica)

I enjoy modern fantasy (mage, Cthulhu, vampire masquerade, promethean)

I enjoy tight and narrow sci fi fantasy (deep space nine, infinity)

I am so sick of Tolkien/Tolkienesque/forgotten realms = I never want to play at a table with dwarves, elves, or halflings ever again.

 

[Willie the Duck]

To be honest, "How fantastical is it?" isn't a question I ever worry about, in my gaming or in my reading.

In the game, I care more about the quality of the players and GM than the world. In my game books, I care less about how fantastical the choices are and far more about the rest of the execution, given those choices.

Whatever you're making, execute it well, and I'll probably like it.

Similar to this. I care, but the answer can be different at different times or with different games/groups. Heck, if my range can include fantasy and hard sci fi and quasi-realistic* special ops games and weird-world** RPGs, I can certainly get behind both low- and high-fantasy fantasy games.
*no supernatural, albeit some cinematic physics or the like.
**Ultraviolet Grasslands or Invisible Suns, etc.

About the only qualifier I would put down is I'm leery of The Prince and the Pauper type situations, where the world you find your character in is so bizarre that you have no idea if they would scratch their own nose or not (or more significantly, if they would find _________ unusual and worthy of investigation, etc.). Mind you, any given gaming group will figure that out right quick, but there have been a few systems where it has been hard to triangulate the designer's intent.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Mind you, any given gaming group will figure that out right quick, but there have been a few systems where it has been hard to triangulate the designer's intent.

Yeah I've come across a few of these, over the years, where the designer was so keen to make the setting and expectations "different" that they forgot to make it relatable, forgot to convey the "day to day" of settings or of being certain kinds of creature. I'd even argue there have been WoD games (mostly minor ones, I won't argue as to the specific ones!) which have at least approached level of "But what do I actually do?!" and often the fiction or examples of play (if present) aren't really that helpful!

As a game that manages to avoid that problem, despite being very weird, I'd point to Spire - because of the way it deploys straightforward tropes and expectations alongside novel and downright strange or hallucinatory ideas, it's pretty easy to see what the day-to-day is, what people find weird, what people find normal, and so on.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Think I'm leaning more toward "extremely fantastical with genre mashups" the older I get. TSR Spelljammer and Talislanta used to sate the itch just fine, but these it takes Aether Nexus or Painted Wastelands to get me excited.

 

[overgeeked]

It’s all about contrast. If I want the PCs (or even the players themselves) to go “wow”, I need to have some restraint so that when they DO encounter the fantastic, it stands out from the mundanity.

If everything is fantastic, nothing is etc…

I used to think that same way but I've come around on it. The mundane is the players' real lives. That's where the contrast is. It's not compare-contrast between two fictional elements, one mundane the other fantastical. You'll always get a wow when it's something new and wild to the player, regardless of the mundane to gonzo ratio of the setting itself.

Now ultra high fantasy gonzo settings can work but the emphasis is then a bit less on the wow factor but on other themes, basic conflicts.

I don't think it has to be either or. You can absolutely do both.

Human vs Self or Human vs Nature can be compelling even in a crazy Moebius Numenera setting a billion years in the future on a low gravity world thriving with alien dinosaurs.

Absolutely loved that setting but really don't care for that system.

 

[Bae'zel]

I used to think that same way but I've come around on it. The mundane is the players' real lives. That's where the contrast is.

Fair enough, that was just my personal perspective. I like that contrast. Others don't. To each their own, friend.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Yeah I think realizing where your creative energy lies is pretty important as a DM.

I may not have a good idea of where my creative energy lies, but I do know I don't feel great if I don't go with my gut.

 

[Epic Meepo]

I am at the point where less and less fantasy is interesting ...

I still enjoy simulation era (playing as round table knights in fictional england, or samurai in fictional asia)

I still enjoy a tight and narrow high fantasy (dragon riders of pern, vampire dark ages, blades in the darks duskovol, ars magica)

I enjoy modern fantasy (mage, Cthulhu, vampire masquerade, promethean)

I enjoy tight and narrow sci fi fantasy (deep space nine, infinity)

I am so sick of Tolkien/Tolkienesque/forgotten realms = I never want to play at a table with dwarves, elves, or halflings ever again.

Hey, don't blame the Forgotten Realms for the prevalence of dwarves, elves, and halflings! That setting is just a kitchen sink that makes use of whatever tropes happen to be in the Player's Handbook.

If the core species in the first Player's Handbook had been androids, vampires, and wombats, the Forgotten Realms would have been all about androids, vampires, and wombats.

 

[Reynard]

Hey, don't blame the Forgotten Realms for the prevalence of dwarves, elves, and halflings! That setting is just a kitchen sink that makes use of whatever tropes happen to be in the Player's Handbook.

If the core species in the first Player's Handbook had been androids, vampires, and wombats, the Forgotten Realms would have been all about androids, vampires, and wombats.

No it wouldn't. Greenwood created the Forgotten Realms almost a decade before D&D.

It was a Tolkien pastiche, not a D&D pastiche.