Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 355720" data-attributes="member: 1106">It's interesting to look back to pioneering RPG settings such as Blackmoor and Arduin and see how hard sci-fi elements (laser guns, space ships etc.) were put there, and how they seem less out of place than contemporary technology, such as six shooters and cars.Then you have your steampunk tech, which fits fantasy even more than hard sci-fi.If I were to make a "swords and sorcery fantasy anachronism scale", it might go something like this:High swords & sorcery anachronism1) Modern contemporary elements (e.g. machine guns, cars, syringes, visiting 20th century London etc.)2) Futuristic "hard" sci-fi elements (e.g. lasers, biotech, space ships etc.)3) "Soft" sci-fi and "space opera" elements, steampunk, magitech etc. (e.g. flying carpet postal services, non-magical time travel, psionics, the force, chaos engines, gnome contraptions, flying ships in space etc.)4) Renaissance/dark-ages/ancient/dinosaur-age anachronisms (e.g. dinosaurs and rapiers in the same setting, "spanish main" gunpowder and canon alongside standard medieval armaments etc.)Low swords & sorcery anachronismThat's just my take on it - surely there are folks who see gunpowder as more anachronistic with regards to sword and sorcery than psionics, and also the setting goes a long way towards providing a place for something that would be anachronistic in another setting.  Large amounts of psionics fits neatly and non-anachronistically in Dark Sun, just as gnomish tech fits neatly in Dragonlance, flying ships in outer space do in Spelljammer, a crashed spaceship and resulting fallout do in Blackmoor, Murlynd with six-shooters does in Greyhawk, and gunpowder oddities do in the Forgotten Realms.Likewise, you could make allowances for all these things in a homebrew.  However, these are variations on generic sword & sorcery assumptions, where Merlin and Gandalf default to using magic rather than psionics, and Arthur and Aragorn default to swinging longswords rather than lunging with rapiers.  Happily, you can substitute psionics for magic and rapiers for longswords, and not much changes, which is your argument...save for some of the default assumptions behind the setting.  Sometimes, though, it feels more comfortable to settle back into the swords & sorcery default.  Scrub all you like, there's still a touch of sci-fi feel to psionics, just as there's a touch of renaissance feel to rapiers.  Is it enough to matter?  That's up to the individual.Because of the richness of borrowing that occurs in D&D, there's also the issues of displacement of setting themes.  Dinosaurs in Chult is one thing.  Dinosaurs all over the Forgotten Realms is another.  In Malatra, the Living Jungle, dinosaurs being everywhere is not an issue.  Likewise, a bit of psionics in the Forgotten Realms is one thing - emphasising it to the exclusion of magic (a strong theme of the setting) is another.  In Dark Sun, the latter example is not an issue, but by that token Dark Sun varies more from default sword & sorcery genre assumptions than the Forgotten Realms do...which is sort of my point.</blockquote>

Verification