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[Mini-Let's Read] The World of Aetaltis
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8779522" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/r4NPBCH.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong>Final Thoughts on World of Aetaltis</strong></p><p></p><p>A huge amount of fantasy RPGs can be boiled down to the phrase “generic medieval fantasy setting, but X.” Shadow of the Demon Lord is “generic medieval fantasy setting invaded by a world-destroying cosmic horror.” Midgard is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but with a Germanic/Slavic focus rather than British.” Ravenloft is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but with Gothic Horror themes and is actually a prison plane.” In some cases such as Dark Sun or Eberron the setting is different enough that it can’t really be described as “generic” anymore but still have some main pitch.</p><p></p><p>Aetaltis saw this common format, and rejected it. Marc Tassin decided that the generic medieval fantasy setting could stand on its own two feet, and when asked by people what made his setting stand apart from the competition, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1486366537/champions-of-aetaltis-a-heroic-fantasy-anthology/posts/1240752" target="_blank">the answer he gave was that it doesn’t.</a></p><p></p><p>The post is wordier than those two answers, but during Aetaltis’ marketing this was the thing that was focused on and pushed to the public. And even then, the world still has that “but X” factor. Several, in fact.</p><p></p><p>Aetaltis is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but with humans as descendants of a Fantasy Star Trek extraplanar colonization effort.”</p><p></p><p>Aetaltis is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but with a reactionary* take on current D&D’s move away from evil humanoid monsters.”</p><p></p><p>But what I think Aetaltis is best at can be encapsulated by the scenes in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhiU4IAZtug" target="_blank">ending song to Konosuba: God’s Blessing On This Wonderful World.</a></p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1U1WiRyROI" target="_blank">If Crunchyroll isn't viewable in your country, here's the English lyrics version but with no scenes</a></p><p></p><p>Aetaltis is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but one where the Starting Village is the campaign.”</p><p></p><p>It’s not about visiting far-flung locales or vanquishing Endroren miles below the earth. Aetaltis is a more local, intimate setting, the kind where the Fighter takes spare time to train the village militia and children argue over who gets play-act as him when engaging in mock battles. The kind where when the orcish army breaches the walls and sets fire to the temple, the Cleric goes “oh no, Sheila was visiting her mother’s grave! We have to rescue her!”</p><p></p><p>The books call this campaign style Street Level, which I feel is a bit of a misnomer in that this brings to mind gritty urban adventures in the vein of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or Batman fighting Two-Face in an abandoned chemical plant. It is not street level, it is hearth fantasy. I know that the latter term is overall rarer in RPG spaces, but it more accurately fits the World of Aetaltis. The adventures do a much better job at encapsulating what I feel sets Aetaltis apart from the competition in a way that the corebooks do not.</p><p></p><p>I can only speculate from the consumer side of things, but I feel that not emphasizing this homey feel or those reimagined classic tropes that now “feel totally new” was to its detriment. And the things I could find that were unique or helped set it apart from Generic Medieval Fantasyland, like the dwarves having socialist and communist governments** or there being a villainous group known as the Purifiers who “go too far” in fighting Endroren’s evil, aren’t all that fleshed out due to the setting’s surface-level approach and brevity in explaining individual entries. Add on top of this the fact that you need to effectively purchase the equivalent of three corebooks to “get the full setting” rather than one. That’s going to be a larger turnoff to consumers who are also told “our product isn’t different from these other brands you know and love.”</p><p></p><p>It’s still a very obscure setting even by 3rd party standards. When browsing YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and some of the more popular RPG forums, the only real content I could find for it was Marc Tassin’s self-promotion, an Actual Play series at a local convention, and videos that barely break 200 views. This is in spite of the fact that Tassin has promoted his work extensively, from buying out ad space on the bigger RPG sites to having tabletop big names such as Ed Greenwood sing its praises.</p><p></p><p>But Aetaltis does have a small yet dedicated fanbase. Although it was unsuccessful due to a very high goal, the last KickStarter raised 12,000 dollars from around 200 backers before the inevitable cancellation. This is actually a pretty great amount for most crowdfunding sourcebooks that aren’t giant tomes or sell lots of physical merchandise, but now the company is setting itself for more reasonable expectations in the form of a digital zine on Patreon.</p><p></p><p>At the end of it all, I feel conflicted about Aetaltis. The big-picture view of the setting didn’t strongly move me or make me go “oh yeah, I have to pitch this to my gaming group!” And the Planet of Hats nature of various lineages and cultures means that I may still do some heavy lifting on filling things out as a DM when the inevitable questions pop up that defer away from Hat-related issues.</p><p></p><p>But when I read the adventures, I found myself confronted with what felt like a different product line. I found myself marveling at how the locales practically jumped out at me as living, breathing worlds. I found myself opening up my web browser frequently, whether to Google some medieval term or household item or going “wow, I can’t believe something like this is rarer in other city/adventure sourcebooks!”</p><p></p><p>Aetaltis <em>is</em> different from other fantasy settings out there, and that isn’t something to be ashamed about. The authors spend loving detail in creating communities, and there are some gems like the Goodwill system or the little quirks and personality traits that tell you a lot about an NPC in just a paragraph of text. This drew me into Aetaltis more than the main pitch ever did.</p><p></p><p>*I don’t mean reactionary in the political sense. I haven’t seen the authors talk much about their political views to my knowledge. More in the sense that its larger themes are a reaction to the dilemma of evil-aligned humanoid monsters that predominates more modern tabletop fantasy.</p><p></p><p>**this isn't projection or extrapolation, the book uses those words!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 8779522, member: 6750502"] [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/r4NPBCH.png[/IMG] [B]Final Thoughts on World of Aetaltis[/B][/CENTER] A huge amount of fantasy RPGs can be boiled down to the phrase “generic medieval fantasy setting, but X.” Shadow of the Demon Lord is “generic medieval fantasy setting invaded by a world-destroying cosmic horror.” Midgard is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but with a Germanic/Slavic focus rather than British.” Ravenloft is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but with Gothic Horror themes and is actually a prison plane.” In some cases such as Dark Sun or Eberron the setting is different enough that it can’t really be described as “generic” anymore but still have some main pitch. Aetaltis saw this common format, and rejected it. Marc Tassin decided that the generic medieval fantasy setting could stand on its own two feet, and when asked by people what made his setting stand apart from the competition, [URL='https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1486366537/champions-of-aetaltis-a-heroic-fantasy-anthology/posts/1240752']the answer he gave was that it doesn’t.[/URL] The post is wordier than those two answers, but during Aetaltis’ marketing this was the thing that was focused on and pushed to the public. And even then, the world still has that “but X” factor. Several, in fact. Aetaltis is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but with humans as descendants of a Fantasy Star Trek extraplanar colonization effort.” Aetaltis is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but with a reactionary* take on current D&D’s move away from evil humanoid monsters.” But what I think Aetaltis is best at can be encapsulated by the scenes in the [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhiU4IAZtug]ending song to Konosuba: God’s Blessing On This Wonderful World.[/url] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1U1WiRyROI]If Crunchyroll isn't viewable in your country, here's the English lyrics version but with no scenes[/url] Aetaltis is “generic medieval fantasy setting, but one where the Starting Village is the campaign.” It’s not about visiting far-flung locales or vanquishing Endroren miles below the earth. Aetaltis is a more local, intimate setting, the kind where the Fighter takes spare time to train the village militia and children argue over who gets play-act as him when engaging in mock battles. The kind where when the orcish army breaches the walls and sets fire to the temple, the Cleric goes “oh no, Sheila was visiting her mother’s grave! We have to rescue her!” The books call this campaign style Street Level, which I feel is a bit of a misnomer in that this brings to mind gritty urban adventures in the vein of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or Batman fighting Two-Face in an abandoned chemical plant. It is not street level, it is hearth fantasy. I know that the latter term is overall rarer in RPG spaces, but it more accurately fits the World of Aetaltis. The adventures do a much better job at encapsulating what I feel sets Aetaltis apart from the competition in a way that the corebooks do not. I can only speculate from the consumer side of things, but I feel that not emphasizing this homey feel or those reimagined classic tropes that now “feel totally new” was to its detriment. And the things I could find that were unique or helped set it apart from Generic Medieval Fantasyland, like the dwarves having socialist and communist governments** or there being a villainous group known as the Purifiers who “go too far” in fighting Endroren’s evil, aren’t all that fleshed out due to the setting’s surface-level approach and brevity in explaining individual entries. Add on top of this the fact that you need to effectively purchase the equivalent of three corebooks to “get the full setting” rather than one. That’s going to be a larger turnoff to consumers who are also told “our product isn’t different from these other brands you know and love.” It’s still a very obscure setting even by 3rd party standards. When browsing YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and some of the more popular RPG forums, the only real content I could find for it was Marc Tassin’s self-promotion, an Actual Play series at a local convention, and videos that barely break 200 views. This is in spite of the fact that Tassin has promoted his work extensively, from buying out ad space on the bigger RPG sites to having tabletop big names such as Ed Greenwood sing its praises. But Aetaltis does have a small yet dedicated fanbase. Although it was unsuccessful due to a very high goal, the last KickStarter raised 12,000 dollars from around 200 backers before the inevitable cancellation. This is actually a pretty great amount for most crowdfunding sourcebooks that aren’t giant tomes or sell lots of physical merchandise, but now the company is setting itself for more reasonable expectations in the form of a digital zine on Patreon. At the end of it all, I feel conflicted about Aetaltis. The big-picture view of the setting didn’t strongly move me or make me go “oh yeah, I have to pitch this to my gaming group!” And the Planet of Hats nature of various lineages and cultures means that I may still do some heavy lifting on filling things out as a DM when the inevitable questions pop up that defer away from Hat-related issues. But when I read the adventures, I found myself confronted with what felt like a different product line. I found myself marveling at how the locales practically jumped out at me as living, breathing worlds. I found myself opening up my web browser frequently, whether to Google some medieval term or household item or going “wow, I can’t believe something like this is rarer in other city/adventure sourcebooks!” Aetaltis [I]is[/I] different from other fantasy settings out there, and that isn’t something to be ashamed about. The authors spend loving detail in creating communities, and there are some gems like the Goodwill system or the little quirks and personality traits that tell you a lot about an NPC in just a paragraph of text. This drew me into Aetaltis more than the main pitch ever did. *I don’t mean reactionary in the political sense. I haven’t seen the authors talk much about their political views to my knowledge. More in the sense that its larger themes are a reaction to the dilemma of evil-aligned humanoid monsters that predominates more modern tabletop fantasy. **this isn't projection or extrapolation, the book uses those words! [/QUOTE]
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