Mundane vs. Fantastical

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

In a quasi-medieval world, going to college and then getting an office job isn't really an option. If you're the second or third son of a minor noble, you either go out and earn a fortune -- through conquest -- or you live in poverty, since you're not inheriting an estate with a steady income.

In a modern setting, sure, no one reasonable becomes an adventurer, but in a pre-modern setting? Yeah, hop on the leaky boat and cross the ocean to fight savages. At least you have a chance of making it.

Sorry, still doesn't work for me. You're completely right, but my point is that I can't play that person because I can't raise myself to their level of blind courage. An unrealistic world illusions me into thinking I at least have half a chance.

I gotta disagree here...the frequency and types of creatures players encounter set their expectations for a particular campaign world. If you encounter Red Dragons that cast spells and shape reality every game session...after about the 5th one you will not be amazed by it, and it will not be something wondrous (no matter how great the DM portrays or describes them)... in fact it will probably take more to amaze you with the overall world, now that this element has become a common occurrence.

On the other hand, if you've never encountered a red dragon, must scale the Razor Peaks, survive deadly traps and battle it's guardians in order to ask it 3 questions...there will be a sense of wonder there (unless the DM shatters it by inappropriately describing or characterizing it.

How do you keep the fantasticness of a lone dragon from being drowned out by the mundanity of everything else?

And the greatest amazement and wonder comes from the sharp contrast between the logical and familiar firmament of the realistic and the breaking of these rules by the fantastic. If everything is fantastic there is no contrast.

There is still the contrast between that and real life no matter how filled the game world is.

 

[Dausuul]

How do you keep the fantasticness of a lone dragon from being drowned out by the mundanity of everything else?

That's kind of like saying, "How do you keep your flashlight from being drowned out by the darkness all around it?" The more mundane the world as a whole is, the more the fantastic elements stand out - the contrast strengthens them, it doesn't weaken them.

 

[Fenes]

MMOG experiences. The first time you meet the red dragon is memorable, gets screen shotted, and all. The 6th time you meet it is just another battle.

If you can expect every animal to have some magic power, then the only suspense left is what kind of magic it has.

 

[Imaro]

That's kind of like saying, "How do you keep your flashlight from being drowned out by the darkness all around it?" The more mundane the world as a whole is, the more the fantastic elements stand out - the contrast strengthens them, it doesn't weaken them.

This...Exactly This.

 

[Fifth Element]

(Yes, yes, Battle of Thermopyle and all that, but, for every Thermopyle, you have a LOT more Alamo's)

I don't think you can count Thermopylae as a victory in the D&D sense of the word. Holding off the enemy for a time before being slaughtered is not what most players are looking for in the game.

 

[Mallus]

If you encounter Red Dragons that cast spells and shape reality every game session...after about the 5th one you will not be amazed by it, and it will not be something wondrous (no matter how great the DM portrays or describes them)...

If you run an encounter with red dragon poorly it won't seem wondrous, either. On the other hand, in my current campaign --though in some ways it's drenched in oddities-- most of the encounters have been with humans. I think I've managed to make them interesting. I like to think my players have killed and/or humiliated some fairly interesting personalities during the course of their checkered-like-a-race-flag career.

... in fact it will probably take more to amaze you with the overall world, now that this element has become a common occurrence.

I've found in order to amaze people you need to think up something amazing (pardon my tautology). Like I said before, scarcity alone isn't going to make a fictional construct interesting/amazing. Ultimately, it takes good writing (and performance).

On the other hand, if you've never encountered a red dragon, must scale the Razor Peaks, survive deadly traps and battle it's guardians in order to ask it 3 questions...there will be a sense of wonder there (unless the DM shatters it by inappropriately describing or characterizing it.

We're basically agreeing here. The fact that the dragon encounter is rare isn't enough to make it wondrous. It still needs to be well executed.

I kinda understand your point, but I think it doesn't take into consideration with books or an rpg, buy in of the world is created by player expectations, and what the GM/author sets them up to be.

In what way aren't I taking player expectations into consideration? I agree that buy-in into the game setting is important, and I'm very interested in how different people approach the job of increasing player buy-in.

 

[GlaziusF]

Falling off a step ladder can do the same thing. Falling off a dire step ladder would be brutal.

-Q.

Yeah, it's a lot bigger and you'd probably hit some spikes on the way down.

 

[Fenes]

The problem I see with "more fantastic" is that people tend to mistake "fantastic" for "interesting" when it comes to characterization. It's easy to fall into the trap of "it can use a special power, so it's interesting" when designing an NPC, and end up with a boring clichee instead of a character.

 

[mmadsen]

Fair enough. And I agree with this. I'm not sure if D&D is the right vehicle for this though. D&D has never really concerned itself with this sort of thing too terribly much. Other than maybe, "You need a +1 weapon to hit this creature" or some such thing, that's about it.

What's peculiar about D&D is that, if you go back a few editions, a huge portion of the game was coming up with "mundane" solutions to problems -- just not in combat. Now, of course, we moved toward rolling dice to solve all problems -- searching, disabling traps, etc. -- but back in the day that part was all free form, and then combat meant dice and clear-cut rules.

To me, D&D has always been far more 300 than mundane.

Even though 300 is really, really over the top, it's not at all fantastic in D&D terms -- no spells, no glowing magic weapons, no magic at all, really, a few almost real monsters.

(Speaking of Spartans, I remember realizing that by the 3E rules a Spartan couldn't wield his spear one-handed. How can you write a combat system where spear + shield isn't valid?)

Even back in the day, when the kill list was several pages long, I realized that I was playing a game that was pretty darn fantastical. Again, even looking at very elementary encounters, say in Keep on the Borderland, you could send a party in, outnumbered 3 or 4 to 1 and have a reasonable expectation of winning. Sure, a few guys might get smoked, but, by and large, you won.

Real life certainly doesn't work like that. If you fight against 3:1 odds, by and large, you lose. Badly. ((Yes, yes, Battle of Thermopyle and all that, but, for every Thermopyle, you have a LOT more Alamo's))

No, a fight against 3:1 odds is not a guaranteed loss, not when you have the initiative and your troops are vastly superior to the enemy's.

At Agincourt, to name just one example, the English were outnumbered 10 to 1. It turned out all right for them.

It's not utterly fantastic and unrealistic for some fighters to be dramatically more effective than others; it's just that D&D chooses fantastic and unrealistic methods for making some fighters more effective than others.

 

[Mallus]

And the greatest amazement and wonder comes from the sharp contrast between the logical and familiar firmament of the realistic and the breaking of these rules by the fantastic. If everything is fantastic there is no contrast.

This is a lot more true in traditional narrative forms like novels or film. In RPG's... not so much. My guess is that this is mainly because RPG's are disproportionally about exploring the fantastic, and let's face it, the highly contrived --"it's a non-stop world of adventure". For the most part, RPG's aren't about introspection and serious human drama, the kinds of things that make the mundane interesting and compelling in fiction. This might explain why historical RPG's, do not, as a subgenre, exist.

Also, contrast is important... but it doesn't need to be between the fantastic and the mundane. There seems to be this underlying assumption here that all fantastic things are the same (like happy families). I heartily disagree with that. There's plenty of room for interesting contrasts between impossible things.