D&D (2024) I think we are on the cusp of a sea change.

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

And before that, Dungeon of the Mad Mage and Tales from the Yawning Portal.

As well as Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Curse of Strahd, and the SCAG.

 

[guachi]

I don't know a ton about Exandria...seems pretty generic in a lot of ways?

I don't know a lot, either, aside from it being the Critical Role setting and that my college friend who is now 49 loves it and she has started DMing an online campaign I am a player in. My extremely limited understanding is that it's pretty generic with good background details of the various countries and locations.

Generic isn't a bad thing. My favorite world is Mystara and its basics are thoroughly generic with the hallmark (when done right) being a bit gonzo and nations with great detail. It's built on the foundations of BECMI and doesn't stray too far from it. In fact, it uses the rules to explain why the world is the way it is. E.g., the elf gazetteer explains why there are no half elves. The Glantri book uses the fact that dwarves and halflings can't be magic-users and have high magic resistance to good effect, imo.

In other words, being generic isn't a problem if there is enough on the culture and background of the locations to make it interesting. And my understanding is Exandria succeeds in that.

 

[Malmuria]

I don't know a lot, either, aside from it being the Critical Role setting and that my college friend who is now 49 loves it and she has started DMing an online campaign I am a player in. My extremely limited understanding is that it's pretty generic with good background details of the various countries and locations.

Generic isn't a bad thing. My favorite world is Mystara and its basics are thoroughly generic with the hallmark (when done right) being a bit gonzo and nations with great detail. It's built on the foundations of BECMI and doesn't stray too far from it. In fact, it uses the rules to explain why the world is the way it is. E.g., the elf gazetteer explains why there are no half elves. The Glantri book uses the fact that dwarves and halflings can't be magic-users and have high magic resistance to good effect, imo.

In other words, being generic isn't a problem if there is enough on the culture and background of the locations to make it interesting. And my understanding is Exandria succeeds in that.

Generic is perfectly fine. I just don't see it as a particularly "2021" setting. Then again, I don't think what the "kids nowadays" want from high fantasy is something markedly different from standard high fantasy convention. Hence, no "sea change"

 

[Scribe]

Not hugely different from 2004, say, and only a little different from 1994, say, but pretty different from say 1984.

I think if we are honest, its about presentation of the setting, way way more than about the setting actually being restrictive.

 

[S'mon]

But how would that attract bunches of people? I don't think there's a particular correlation between being annoyed with 5E's changes and liking "dark fantasy" (also I would question whether Midgard is "dark fantasy". If it is, Earthdawn definitely, and a whole lot of stuff is - arguably Golarion is even, it's about as dark as Midgard). It seems like the people who are "stomping their foot" mad are all mad about stuff like non-all-evil orcs and so on, so you'd have to go a bit further than that.

Outside of D&D I think the most popular fantasy settings tend to be stuff like The Witcher and Game of Thrones, mostly not super dark but certainly much darker than D&D's current direction. I'd tend to put Golarion in there too, yup, at least 1e Golarion. Runelord Sorshen spontaneously deciding to be non-evil and non-lustful in Return of the Runelords felt very odd* to me, and I've not followed the setting in 2e.

*Although I did stick with it in my own Runelords campaign, I just don't obligate the players to side with her.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Outside of D&D I think the most popular fantasy settings tend to be stuff like The Witcher and Game of Thrones, mostly not super dark but certainly much darker than D&D's current direction. I'd tend to put Golarion in there too, yup, at least 1e Golarion. Runelord Sorshen spontaneously deciding to be non-evil and non-lustful in Return of the Runelords felt very odd* to me, and I've not followed the setting in 2e.

*Although I did stick with it in my own Runelords campaign, I just don't obligate the players to side with her.

I do find it odd that official D&D is not a good emulator for that kind of fantasy, at least in tone. I guess there's more money in light and cheerful. Anyway, plenty of 3rd party products handle that stuff well.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Generic is perfectly fine. I just don't see it as a particularly "2021" setting. Then again, I don't think what the "kids nowadays" want from high fantasy is something markedly different from standard high fantasy convention. Hence, no "sea change"

If you use phrases like "kids nowadays" then you are probably out of touch with what kids nowadays want.

As mentioned a couple of posts up there is an Eastern influence - particularly Japanese and Korean - that simply wasn't there in the 1970s. The main feature is the Eastern style sees nothing strange in mixing magic and swords with a modern or futuristic setting. So the idea that medieval Europe as the default fantasy setting is being squeezed. If you read something like Barrier Peaks, you see sci fi tropes being described based on the assumption that the player characters have a medieval mindset.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Outside of D&D I think the most popular fantasy settings tend to be stuff like The Witcher and Game of Thrones, mostly not super dark but certainly much darker than D&D's current direction.

Definitely but I don't see any indications that any group of 5E players (whether 20-somethings or 40-somethings or whatever) particularly wants their D&D settings to be like that.

Otherwise darker settings would sell like hot cakes, wouldn't they? And in fact they don't. For your theory to work, there would have to be this unmet demand for that stuff. But the demand is absolutely met. Even beyond D&D, there are tons of "dark fantasy" RPGs, Shadow of the Demon Lord being an obvious one. Are they hideously successful? Not really. They do fine. It certainly looks like demand is met there.

So I would say that evidence suggests that the people who watch GoT and The Witcher, do not want to play out GoT or The Witcher in a TTRPG. YMMV.

EDIT - As an aside, whilst it didn't blow up the world, the Shadow and Bone show for Netflix is based on a series which roughly Witcher-dark, and which shows perhaps a take which is closer to how TTRPG doing "dark fantasy" in those kinds of settings might look. It was successful but I don't think a mind-blowing hit.

Further, I think a lot of it on TV is just about spin. Like, look at the Wheel of Time show. Firstly it's pretty great, I was shocked, the books are dull, but the show starts "Eh" and becomes "HELL YEAH!", but the show FEELS like 10x darker than the books. It isn't. It's the roughly the same events, but for some reason seeing them, hearing them, all that - wow that's a lot scarier than reading them (this is not always the case - I think it shows a limitation Jordan had as a writer but feel free to disagree). So what I would call "normal fantasy" in terms of darkness - WoT - comes across as pretty damn scary. I mean I think you could spin the FR or Eberron to be pretty "dark" if you wanted to. It's just on how you describe things and what you choose to happen.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Definitely but I don't see any indications that any group of 5E players (whether 20-somethings or 40-somethings or whatever) particularly wants their D&D settings to be like that.

Otherwise darker settings would sell like hot cakes, wouldn't they? And in fact they don't. For your theory to work, there would have to be this unmet demand for that stuff. But the demand is absolutely met. Even beyond D&D, there are tons of "dark fantasy" RPGs, Shadow of the Demon Lord being an obvious one. Are they hideously successful? Not really. They do fine. It certainly looks like demand is met there.

So I would say that evidence suggests that the people who watch GoT and The Witcher, do not want to play out GoT or The Witcher in a TTRPG. YMMV.

EDIT - As an aside, whilst it didn't blow up the world, the Shadow and Bone show for Netflix is based on a series which roughly Witcher-dark, and which shows perhaps a take which is closer to how TTRPG doing "dark fantasy" in those kinds of settings might look. It was successful but I don't think a mind-blowing hit.

Further, I think a lot of it on TV is just about spin. Like, look at the Wheel of Time show. Firstly it's pretty great, I was shocked, the books are dull, but the show starts "Eh" and becomes "HELL YEAH!", but the show FEELS like 10x darker than the books. It isn't. It's the roughly the same events, but for some reason seeing them, hearing them, all that - wow that's a lot scarier than reading them (this is not always the case - I think it shows a limitation Jordan had as a writer but feel free to disagree). So what I would call "normal fantasy" in terms of darkness - WoT - comes across as pretty damn scary. I mean I think you could spin the FR or Eberron to be pretty "dark" if you wanted to. It's just on how you describe things and what you choose to happen.

I think fantasy TV is like DC superhero movies. The film makers think that for them to appeal to older audiences they have to be super-dark, when really, what the audience wants in Marvel.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think fantasy TV is like DC superhero movies. The film makers think that for them to appeal to older audiences they have to be super-dark, when really, what the audience wants in Marvel.

MCU stuff definitely consistently feels more like superhero RPGs I've actually played with actual players lol, what with all the quips and backslapping and rivalry and general "party of adventurers" vibe they often have.

That said the most purely "fun" superhero movie I've seen in recent years was DC - Aquaman. It rocks by the way. But it absolutely felt like an MCU movie (I suspect Marvel is seething that their main Aquaman-type's central personality trait is "He's a tremendous jerk" so Namor is probably not getting his own movie lol).