Is D&D 4E too "far out" to expand the market easily?

[Corjay]

Yeah, Dune is definitely another fantasy story. I mean, come on, the lead character resolves everything with his powers. Could you get more fantasy than that?

 

[TwinBahamut]

My brother commented well enough on the Dune thing, so I won't repeat hat he said, but I guess I have a few things to mention myself.

Curiosity, yep. Faith? Not so much. Read the book.

I'll pass. I have been slowly drifting away from books over the past several years, and hard science fiction and the like has never interested me very much. Red Mars put me to sleep halfway through when I tried sitting down and reading it a few years ago...

Contact revolves around the idea that there is a super race somewhere out there that is contacting us. The fact that it's a scientist protagonist makes all the difference in the world. In a fantasy story, the protagonist would be a child - making it a much more Alice in Wonderland sort of story.

You are not making much sense at all. By your own definition, the super-race element is irrelevant. The nature of the protagonist is irrelevant to your definition as well. If you want to convince me on this one, you really need to explain yourself a lot better. because I am not seeing it.

I highly recommend reading some Gardner Dozois if you are truly interested in the subject. There are loads of critical books and essays that will much better explain this than I ever can.

All my years of college have tended to make me a bit jaded when confronted with "critical essays" and the like... Maybe it is the fact that I got into being an English major only after studying the physical sciences, math, and philosophy for a few years, but I could never accept the "someone wrote it down, so it must be true" mentality that pervades the entire realm of literary study, where what matters is what a few "canonical" academics claim, rather than what is empirically true. I prefer direct logical analysis based on my own observations, myself.

You are looking for the term speculative fiction when you wrap fantasy with SF. That covers both genres. And, yup, there's overlap. Of course there is. Genre is an art, not a science. But, the division most certainly is not simply setting.

I never liked the term "speculative fiction", myself. Maybe it is just the name, but I don't like the fact that it just tries to lump so many different things together under a presumption of authorial intent... In many respects, many Science Fiction and particularly many Fantasy works are not about some kind "speculation" (meaning that they are not trying to tell some kind of "what if", but instead simply use the tropes of the genre to tell a very different kind of tale). For example, I would claim that Star Wars is Science Fiction, but not Speculative Fiction (using my own definitions). Also, the problem with using an all-encompassing label for both is that it ignores the fact that there are many stories told under both genres that would work just as well under a very realistic or historical setting.

The big problem is that the very ideas of "Science Fiction" and "Fantasy" are too all-encompassing to be defined as genres of any kind. You can't claim "Star Wars is not Science Fiction" because the term Science Fiction is too broad and inclusive. You can easily say something like "Star Wars is not Hard Science Fiction", since Hard Science Fiction has very specified restrictions (and thus is reasonably defined genre, sometimes), but it is much harder to argue that it is not Science Fiction.

In many ways, I even wonder if the narrow definition of Science Fiction that you are using is just a misapplication of a widely used word with many broad connotations for a very specific and small genre... Perhaps it is the original historical use of the word, but words change in meaning, and it in this case the term Science Fiction has become far more broad as it has grown in use.

Bookstores shelve things according to publisher desires, not according to any standard that has been set so don't go by what they do. (Also don't forget that most people who work there are just there to keep you from stealing, or to run the equipment; they have no interest or desire to correctly shelve books). Publishers set things into genres according to how they think they will sell. Burroughs gets shelves in 'literature' not 'SF' because it's old. Margaret Atwood gets shelved in 'General Fiction' even through she's written science fiction (even she seems confused about what she writes; it generally depends on who she's giving an interview to, ie, who she wants to suck up to to get sales). King gets put in general fiction because he sells well enough there and most stores don't have a 'horror' section.

Why is the bookstore definition any less valid than any other definition? If they don't use some "standard", doesn't that just mean that the standard is irrelevant? As you say, bookstores shelve their books according to what readers care about and are looking for. It hardly matters whether an author thinks his work is "Science Fiction" or not, and what an academic thinks matters even less, but what genre a reader identifies a work as does matter, and bookstores and publishers cater to that and that alone (and do so quite well).

Anyways, this is enough of a divergence from the topic of the thread for me. I won't comment on this any further.

 

[Corjay]

You know, I'm thinking that this Science Fiction vs. Fantasy debate has really totally strayed from the OP's intent for this thread. Perhaps any further discussion should be forked to a new thread.

 

[FallenTabris]

After reading all of this thread I wonder why there is a problem. D&D has now become its own thing with a unique mythology in relation to dwarves, trolls, and even dragons. I highly doubt the general public would think of a dragon breathing anything but fire. It is far removed from many fantasy novel tropes or memes while still retaining quite a few traditional elements. It also draws on video games, movies, anime and comics for inspiration. I think it is a great mixed bag of fantasy.

Dungeons and Dragons obviously still has the dragons and dungeons in it. It is snarky to suggest otherwise or perhaps just ill informed. Yes there are bunches of bizarre imaginary things that could be called 'wahoo'. I believe the point of playing D&D is to have adventures and dramatics in a wahoo universe.

 

[garyh]

So half-elves end up rare, but not children of rape. And this gets backed up in the "Tolkeinesque" settings, including D&D settings such as Dragonlance (with Tanis Half-Elven, the Face character).

Actually, Tanis was a product of rape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanis_Half-Elven

There's a bit in the wiki article about some book down the line taking a different view, but I've read about two dozen DL novels and had never heard of that. Nor would anyone who stopped at just the original trilogy.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Also, in the LOTR movies the elves are somewhat isolationist and haughty (like Vulcans) but will work together with humans and occasionally fall in love with them (like Vulcans). So half-elves end up rare, but not children of rape. And this gets backed up in the "Tolkeinesque" settings, including D&D settings such as Dragonlance (with Tanis Half-Elven, the Face character).

Except, as someone else brought up, elf-human relations were very strongly taboo in Middle-Earth.

Also, Tanis is a perfect example of helf-elves coming from rape.

Furthermore, not only is there the taboo, but in many, many, MANY setting, stories, myths, and what have you, half-elves themselves are mistrusted, discriminated against, or flat out seen as abominations by both elves and humans.

I get the sense at times that half-elves were given a "happier" backround because "elves are pretty"

 

[Maggan]

Also, Tanis is a perfect example of helf-elves coming from rape.

Tanis is also, as far as I know, the only example of this origin.

/M

 

[haakon1]

The anti-hero is a pretty popular tradition too.

The anti-hero is so PLAYED. That's one of the problems with 4th E -- it's stuck in the mid-1990s geekiness mindset of its creators. I so don't need more 1990s.

Gary's bizarre mindset, mixing his knowledge of medieval warfare and fantasy literature was far more interesting, IMHO.

Re: Star Wars, AD&D is equivalent to what was later renamed "A New Hope". 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition are a bit like "Empire" and "Jedi" -- true to the the original, and pretty good -- some would say even better than the original.

4th is addition is like "Phantom Menace" -- supposedly better, snazzier, streamlined, and returning to its roots, but actually the introduction of Jar-Jar and mediclorines.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The anti-hero is so PLAYED. That's one of the problems with 4th E -- it's stuck in the mid-1990s geekiness mindset of its creators. I so don't need more 1990s.

On Anti-Heroes: They go back a lot further than the 1990s. Elric, one of the first anti-heroes in fantasy, first appeared in 1961. Fafhrd and Grey Mouser- characters with anti-heroic elements (without being true anti-heroes)- first appeared in 1939.

And there is no question that EGG and crew were familiar with those works.

 

[Corjay]

Yeah, as brilliant as the man was, he was not original in his concept of mixing medieval and fantasy literature. And talking about played out.

First, I'm not sure what the "anti-hero" is played out thing has to do with 4e beyond the Tiefling. Even so, the anti-hero is only just gaining momentum as evidenced with the rise of such comic stories as Hellboy, X-men's Wolverine, the Goblin from SM3, the Silver Surfer from F4, Daredevil, and Batman. Then there's the fact that Elric is only just under production as a movie. It sounds to me like anti-heroes are gaining momentum, not losing ground, and while the anti-hero may have gained a little ground in RPG's in the 90's, and experienced a mild renaissance with the Crow, they certainly never approached anything near a hay day. After the Elric movie comes out, I guarantee that the hay day will begin, and both Tieflings and Drow will be the faves as new blood comes into the game.