Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9352640" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Contra some of the stuff from [USER=11760]@Whizbang Dustyboots[/USER] , which I don't think is wrong, but I think is too exclusive...Gen Z and Gen Alpha are...pretty tired of grimdark and "gritty realism," but they're aware enough that we can't just go back to the prior unquestioned-moral-absolutist-heroism of yesteryear. One way of doing that is "cozy" fantasy, stuff that rebuilds sincerity and meaning by going for low-stakes warm fuzzies. Essentially, it becomes a believable "sincerely good" fantasy again because it rejects the need to "save the day" and instead becomes "save the farm" or "make a coffee shop" or the like.But there's another way, a way highlighted by things like the DCAU, ATLA, the new She-Ra, Steven Universe, and a few other things. I call it "chiaroscuro" fantasy. I'm sure someone else has made a different and better name, but that's the name I like, 'cause I like the visual metaphor.In chiaroscuro, the world has dark things in it. It has larger-than-life villains who do genuinely terrible things. It doesn't shy away from admitting that sometimes even public symbols are at least half hollow spectacle, that scapegoating is a problem, that the world faces real, serious, systemic problems that a single Brave Hero fighting the good fight cannot fix, no matter how hard they work for it. That's the "oscuro", the shadows we can't banish (because any attempt to do so is always tainted--blinding us to the shadows that remain, not actually eliminating them.)But the "chiaro" is just as important. It's true, sincere, unabashed friendship. It's having the strength and courage to be goofy and fun-loving. It's people doing what they are sure is right (even if they're mistaken or misled or manipulated), and not being afraid to admit they were wrong, not throwing in the towel when stuff goes wrong but sticking with it and striving to do better. It's recognizing that "people" are not just inherently and permanently "stupid" and "scared" and "dangerous," but rather that they CAN be that...or they CAN be better if they're given a reason to. It's showing that justice and mercy, kindness and admonishment, courage and compassion CAN make a difference. That just because heroes can't solve everything doesn't mean they solve nothing--and that what they do solve, may help pave the way for others to solve the things heroes can't.Consider She-Ra. That's pretty clearly a universe where evil is real. It's not painted as some fictitious thing, that everyone really is fundamentally good and just misguided--some of the bad guys, and in particular the upper echelons of leadership, really can be just unapolagetically dag-nasty evil. But She-Ra starts off working for the villains, only to defect early on--and several other characters do the same. They find a conscience, often in part inspired by the example she set for them. It may take time; people may be incredibly self-destructive and even threaten the whole world with their lashing out as they work through trauma. Evil people enable and exploit those folks to get what they want. The best of the best are those who unflinchingly face that darkness and try to overcome it while saving as much as they can. Some will take the pragmatic-good approach of genuinely putting a villain in the ground for good if that's what it takes, while others will earnestly and fervently search for a way to resolve the conflict with a minimum of violence, sometimes using imprisonment (e.g. SU) or debilitation (e.g. ATLA) rather than death. It's understood that this is a messy and complicated thing, and anyone claiming to offer clean, simple answers is generally an outright villain, or a villain in disguise.So, for me, a D&D-workable "Gen Z/Alpha fantasy setting" would look something like this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Multipolar regional politics, no single hegemonic power unless it's an evil empire to be opposed</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">High diversity in race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, gender identity, orientation, physical/mental disability, etc.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Emphasis on seeking reconciliation, even if that sometimes proves fruitless/impossible</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Embrace of both shiny-bright hero archetypes (e.g. Paladins) and dark-and-edgy hero archetypes (e.g. Warlock)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Connecting to the personal lives of individual people (mostly an adventure writing style thing--give names to every villager, make real families and ground the action with that context)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">While combat is acceptable, lethal violence is not unless there really, truly isn't any other way</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Real evil exists, but is usually supernatural, top-level leadership, or outright incurable, megalomaniacal insanity/personality</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It's always possible for people to change and strive to be better, but the harder they resist that, the harder the road back will be</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Evil" magic used for good ends is acceptable, so long as it doesn't violate consent or age of majority</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Faith is either de-emphasized completely, made ambiguous, or furnished with a diverse array of distinct belief styles (e.g. animism, deism, atheism, non-theistic religion a la Buddhism, etc.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Direct intervention from organized religious institutions (not the powers themselves, but their clergy) will either be quite rare, obviously villainous, or (very rarely) a trans-theological ecumenical alliance</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Supernatural wonder will be emphasized more through little delights of intense but uncontrollable magic, rather than through alien and mysterious but ultimately controllable magic</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If shorn of the obvious sexual assault problems and violence issues, myth is a perfectly acceptable and even desirable source</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">No IRL-like politics. If it gets political at all, it's like monarchists vs mercantilists, not "conservative" vs "liberal" or "traditional" vs "progressive" or the like.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Diverse environments, and caring for those environments matters; often, exploitation of magical resources in a way that damages the environment will be a key background issue, which may or may not get resolved</li> </ul></blockquote>

Verification