The Possibility of "Too Fantastic" Fantasy

[S'mon]

Starting with unfamiliar cultures and motivations, on the other hand, can take one off the rails quite quickly. Moorcock (one of the iconic literary inspirations for D&D, IMO) is interesting in this regard; in at least two cases (Corum and Elric), he starts with characters who come from cultures and mindsets that aren't easily cognizable to the reader.

Hmm, I never felt that way about Moorcock's Vadhagh & Melniboneans, like Tolkien's elves they seem much less unfamiliar to me than do the mindsets of plenty of modern real-world cultures, never mind historical ones.

 

[Incenjucar]

I think the thing is to envision the PCs as the Einsteins and Ghandis and Shakespeares and George Washingtons and Ceasars of the world.

Yes, they're pretty much doing what everyone else can do, but they're doing it at a level that few can imagine that turns them into living legends (until they die ).

What they do, ultimately, is NOT something that other people can do, not to nearly as much effect as they have. Your local coffee house poet will never be a Shakespeare. The guy who experiments in his garage every weekend will never be Einstein. They may be good, they may be great, but they aren't going to be remembered for thousands of years for their accomplishments.

Your PCs are the Ceasars.

 

[kennew142]

A good fix for that would be to revise the demo chart to reflect class groups (Warrior, Adventurer, Arcane and Divine). Of course, I think revising everything to reflect those 4 groups is a good idea, even going so far as to just make those 4 classes, but that's a different issue.

This is what I did in my 3e games. The first town I tried to create by using (very loosely) the rules in the DMG seemed off to me. But when I added in the classes of the expanded psionics handbook, the number of heroic classed characters seemed really high. That's when I decided to use broad groups to represent heroic classed pcs. I used the same groups mentioned above, plus Woodsy to cover rangers and druids. I was looking to cover the flavors (might I dare say, power source) of the npcs more than their mechanics.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I think the thing is to envision the PCs as the Einsteins and Ghandis and Shakespeares and George Washingtons and Ceasars of the world.

True, but I think the sticking point here is more how to portray the everyman of x given fantasy world than how to deal with PCs. I think that the average PC party can easily resemble a freak show compared to the surrounding millieu; the question becomes what happens when the man on the street is capable of easily interacting with, or even being, a flying energy-bolt-shooting shapeshifting mega-sage, or a fire-breathing dragon-man, or the descendant of demons. Can players identify with the characters and social structures of such worlds in more than a highly abstract sci-fi-alien sort of way?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Hmm, I never felt that way about Moorcock's Vadhagh & Melniboneans, like Tolkien's elves they seem much less unfamiliar to me than do the mindsets of plenty of modern real-world cultures, never mind historical ones.

I don't know, I think that fictional cultures are nearly always going to be more familiar than disparate actual modern cultures.

Writing unreality is difficult on the one hand.

On the other, you, as the audience, pretty much know you know everything there is to know about the fictional culture and you know that you will never know everything there is to know about your own culture much less a disparate one.

On the gripping hand, there's also a lot more incentive to feel a real world culture is alien than a literary one. We want to be familiar with what we read, we don't really want to be familiar with what may oppose us.

 

[Incenjucar]

I think that the average PC party can easily resemble a freak show compared to the surrounding millieu; the question becomes what happens when the man on the street is capable of easily interacting with, or even being, a flying energy-bolt-shooting shapeshifting mega-sage, or a fire-breathing dragon-man, or the descendant of demons. Can players identify with the characters and social structures of such worlds in more than a highly abstract sci-fi-alien sort of way?

Think of it as an honors college crowd hitting a dive bar full of high school dropouts.

"Hey, meet Susie. Susie can draw so well that you can't tell it isn't a photograph. This is Jake, Jake once took on a three man tackle, head on, and was still standing at the touch down. Here's Alexis, she can multiply ten digit numbers faster than you can punch them into a calculator. Bobby? Bobby's nickname is MacGyver. He found a way to make stem cells into clean nuclear energy.

They ARE a freak show.

And, of course, you have actual freak shows.

All in the real world. All D&D does is aim more towards the physical side of things, and pull it out of the isolation of the circus tent, the university, and the IT campus.

Really, just look up Ripley's. The world is full of absolutely crazy stuff, and most people just don't think about it. But you could easily end up bumping into some dude who can bench press a pony if you're in the right city.

 

[S'mon]

On the gripping hand, there's also a lot more incentive to feel a real world culture is alien than a literary one. We want to be familiar with what we read, we don't really want to be familiar with what may oppose us.

Eh, the alienness to me of pre-Columbian Mexico or 5th century BC Greece is not because I fear invasion by ancient Greeks or pre-Columbian Aztecs. And Arabian culture seems a lot more alien to me now since I got to be friends with an Arab and she told me a lot (mostly horrible - makes Melnibone look like Rivendell) about growing up in Arabia, than it did when I read "Emirates of Ylaruam".

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Eh, the alienness to me of pre-Columbian Mexico or 5th century BC Greece is not because I fear invasion by ancient Greeks or pre-Columbian Aztecs. And Arabian culture seems a lot more alien to me now since I got to be friends with an Arab and she told me a lot (mostly horrible - makes Melnibone look like Rivendell) about growing up in Arabia, than it did when I read "Emirates of Ylaruam".

Oh, no doubt it's a question of degrees and spin more than anything else. I just think culture in books being more familiar vs culture in news being less is one tendency among many.

And on that note, it's perfectly possible that the cultures of different species would feel more or less alien to us as well.