The Possibility of "Too Fantastic" Fantasy

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Also, I think it's worth remembering that there's a continuum of fantasy ranging from more mundane fantasy (even if it is an oxymoron) to more, well, fantastic fantasy.

Ooo, nice phrase.

Though another way to think of it is the Beowulf style Geat - Grendel - Firedrake continuity.

You start off with raiders in the night, get to the point where you're looting Giant Swords from the Mother of Night, and finally die at the hands of a creture that turns Night into Day.

 

[Wolfspider]

Warcraft is a big move from Earth mythology, but it's full of familiar and iconic imagery (knights in shining armor, barbaric orcs, sorcerous elves, stalwart dwarves, etc.) with some of it's own stuff (voodoo trolls, naturalist minotaurs, trader goblins, draenei) which appeals to so many people. DS and PS were pretty much all different all the time, and that didn't grab as many people.

Good point. You can change a lot of things in a setting if certain core ideas remain the same, creating a comfort zone for players and DMs.

 

[rounser]

The D&D core contained a "certain amount of unfamiliar" in 3e, and this didn't stop people from homebrewing in the slightest.

Aasimar, Aboleth, Achaierai, Allip, Androsphinx, Ankheg, Annis, Aranea, Arrowhawk, Athach, Avoral, Azer, Babau, Barghest, Behir, Belker, Blink Dog, Bodak, Bralani, Bulette, Chaos beast, choker, chuul, darkmantle, delver, destrachan, digester, displacer beast, dragonne, drider, ethereal filcher, ethereal marauder, ettercap, ettin... and that's just up to E with the "totally unfamiliar to anyone who isn't experienced with D&D."

PC races are a different kettle of fish to monsters. Monsters last for an encounter, PCs for a campaign. There’s a lot more pressure to integrate a PC race into the world than there is some random monster, and a much bigger thematic footprint if you’ve got dragondudes downing tankards in the local tavern. You don’t have to wonder whether the barkeep lets chuuls in, for instance (unless it’s the City State of the Invincible Overlord, perhaps).

Feywild... Shadowfell... giants/titans, primordials vs gods, etc) while making everything have a place.

Well, Fairyland, gods, and giants/titans have mythological basis, and so are likely to slot into familiarity and a lot of worlds.

The Plane of Shadow isn’t particularly mythological, but is generic in a way similar to how the elemental planes were – as in, there’s a solid theme to it like “this place is firey, everything’s about fire here”. Pretty strong trope, although arguably a bit arbitrary…why shadows, but not tapioca pudding, for instance?

Eladrin have basically always existed (poorly), as gray elves.

Arguably they would have been better kept as “something elf”, because “eladrin” sounds contrived. They sound like a third rate “Eldar”. Again, I ask why GW can use this name and WOTC can’t? It’s better than Eladrin. Oh right, trademarks.

And in case you didn't know, half-dragons and things like that have been pretty popular for a while. A dragonman race in a game called Dungeons and Dragons isn't necessarily crazy.

How much of it was for crunch munchkin reasons skewing the data, though? And if the game needed PC dragons, give them PC dragons. Not some halfway house anachronism, the real McCoy. That would have fitted in every D&D world better than what we’ve got, even if they had to stay shapechanged into humanoid a lot of the time.

The same "you have to ban things if you don't want them" rules applied when people wanted to ban core races in the past. Nothing has changed in that regard, except a reshuffling of the core races due to popularity through feedback.

Three comments: The core shouldn’t lend itself to needing to be banned, it should be generic enough that it didn’t make you reach for your banhammer. Secondly, these races will be turning up all over the shop as NPCs in published adventures and settings, and will need to be weeded out manually. Thirdly, this is the thin edge of a huge ideological wedge regarding the content of the core. A race or two can be removed maybe, but what other hardcoded flavour cannot be removed so easily, like coupling ice and acid together, say?

And people still managed it with BECMI's implied setting and 3e's implied Greyhawk, so I don't see anything stopping people in 4e, except lack of creativity.

The difference is that there was less specific impetus to have to ban stuff. You could just eyeball the list of races, think of the mythology you could tap for your own world’s elves and put a new spin on, and just include them. Now you have to stop and think about it, because not everything fits as much by default in your “average fantasy setting” anymore. It’s more specific than that. There have always been D&Disms in D&D, but I don't see that as an invitation to add more to the core when they could perfectly easily just be saved for a supplement.

 

[rounser]

Up to a point it's easier to take things off than to put them on.

That's the crux of the matter. A race is a lot easier to rip out of the game than a feat system, but you'll be continually reminded of this "nonexistent race" in artwork, published materials and so forth, simply because it is core, which is annoying when they could easily just make it not core. Ripping out something more deeply embedded in the game like Attacks of Opportunity was hard with 3E because of rules interdependence. 4E shows signs of improvement in this respect, by attempting to make the rules transparent.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What the players of a D&D game find mundane is very different from what the average inhabitant of a D&D world finds mundane. For example to D&D players, trolls, dragons and fireball spells are incredibly commonplace, whereas for an inhabitant of the world they are fantastic. On the other hand, most D&D players would find winnowing to be strange, but to a medieval peasant it's mundane.

 

[Hussar]

And another thing: If this "move away from Earth mythology" stuff actually worked, then Planescape and Dark Sun would still be in print.

I love them both, but there must be a reason why they haven't survived and, say, FR (heavily based on stereotypical D&D fantasy, the type which the core D&D game used to specialise in) has.

/snip.

The difference is, of course, novels. Best selling novels at that. If R. A. Salvatore hadn't been a blockbuster in the late 80's, do you REALLY think the Realms would be any more viable than Greyhawk? The novels and then later the video games are the reason FR is still around. Greyhawk novels never managed to do very well, so Greyhawk get's the boot and FR gets the loving.

No difference than with the other 2e settings. If Planescape: Torment had made the kind of money that Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter did, you can bet your butt that we'd still have Planescape in print.

People don't "run" or 'worldbuild" WoW, though. They just play it. That's why the comparison doesn't apply, and what's acceptable for WoW may be folly for core D&D.

I'm not sure if that's really true either though. While you can't directly worldbuild, of course, you can certainly build around it. Look at the various guilds and the level of interaction they have with the players. Building a guild and working it is pretty similar to world building.

In any case though, I think you overestimate the importance of world building to most gamers. I'm surprised that you do actually. I remember that monster thread as well and you were pretty adamant about how world building isn't necessary to play D&D.

Now, finally, we have an edition where that's actually true. Note, I didn't say you don't need setting. That's stupid. Of course you need setting. However, what I don't have to do anymore is spend hundreds of hours mentally masturbating and creating a world, just to play D&D.

If I WANT to do that in 4e, I will be able to. Of that I have zero doubt. It might be slightly more difficult than in 3e, but, honestly, I doubt it will be. We'll see homebrewing in 4e same as any other edition. However, what we will hopefully see is more people being willing to DM because they don't have to world build.

Me, personally, that's groovy. I loathe world building. Hate it with a passion. I've used modules, not exclusively, but regularly for every edition. Having discovered "campaign in a box" with the World's Largest Dungeon and now Paizo's Adventure Paths, I will never, ever world build again.

I love playing D&D. Always have. But, I have zero interest in world building. Those of you who like it? Great, go ahead. Nothing is stopping you. But, I do not think that the baseline assumption of the game should be, "Here is a game, now, go forth and spend a hundred hours detailing a world before you get to play."

No thanks.

 

[xechnao]

MMORPG WoW is more popular than D&DOnline.
PnP D&D is more popular than Warcraft pnp.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

MMORPG WoW is more popular than D&DOnline.
PnP D&D is more popular than Warcraft pnp.

Well, sort of, the Warcraft PnP is DnD. To a large extent Warcraft itself is DnD.

It's without a doubt the most successful home brew of all time.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

That's the crux of the matter. A race is a lot easier to rip out of the game than a feat system, but you'll be continually reminded of this "nonexistent race" in artwork, published materials and so forth, simply because it is core, which is annoying when they could easily just make it not core. Ripping out something more deeply embedded in the game like Attacks of Opportunity was hard with 3E because of rules interdependence. 4E shows signs of improvement in this respect, by attempting to make the rules transparent.

Ok, I'll grant you the annoyance, but at the same time I think you need to make room for players who really want the change and appreciate the reminders and art work for the core.

And Dragonborn really don't seem like a bad choice. The Half-Dragon was the first non-core race I ever saw anyone play in 3.0. In the first 3.0 adventure I ever played no less, and it stuck. In the years I played the game it was the most frequently played non-care race by far, and it was also significant in that people who didn't normally play would ask for it.

And the nascent Dragonborn don't stop there either. Arcana Evolved had two draconic humanoid races. They were all over the place in video games. They did all right.

Now nearly the same thing could be said of Cat-girls, and I would agree that there is a munchkin factor, but...

the munchkin factor also gets brought in regard to Elves and Dwarves. And I think maybe there is something to be said for catering to it.

So if you have to have a 'strong' choice for a core PC race I think Dragonborn fit well into the tradition of the game. Maybe not so well as Ogres or something, but I think Dragonborn have the potential to be more interesting. They're at least better than another Half-race. I'm not saying that this makes Dragonborn essential, but I do think it makes them a good choice.

Now the Eladrin/Elf split was probably essential that I'll grant them.

My point isn't to defend the Dragonborn specifically, but just to point out that I think these specific choices were strategic choices and we deserve to give them a little bit of credit for at least thinking it through that far.

And I agree completely that the transparency is key. As much as people have complained about the lack of crunch, I really appreciate that they are being pretty clear about their deliberation and thinking. Sure, it's edited, but I think it's significant that they spend so much effort showing us how ideas get bounced around and changed. Even how ideas get rejected or reworked.

The fact that we don't have cat-people and Drow is the first good step.

 

[Jhaelen]

But we can't forget the mundane, everyday aspects either, lest we lose the "fantasy".

Agreed. If a setting is so fantastic that it becomes totally alien, completely unrecognizable from the world we know, it becomes extremely difficult to tell any meaningful stories taking place in it.
Contrasting the fantastic with the mundane leaves a much more memorable impression, imho.

OTOH, there have been tidbits about the new implied setting that have led me to believe that the new cosmology is less fantastic than it has been in previous editions. For example the Feywild which was described as a magical mirror of the mundane. That sounds a lot less fantastic than most planes of the cosmic wheel. I have great hopes for the Feywild if it isn't too fantastic.