The Possibility of "Too Fantastic" Fantasy

[iskurthi]

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

Unfortunately one of the iron laws of role-playing games is that the likelihood of cat-people appearing in a setting or game is directly proportional to the number of expansions that setting has had.

Give the cat-girls time. They'll be along eventually.

Though, really, is a cat-person any more fantastic than a dragon-man or a spiky guy with horns and a tail?

 

[kennew142]

Traditionally, my homebrews have been so simulationist in nature that the fantastic always seemed tacked on. This isn't surprising, since I am a historian. I found Greyhawk and FR to be the same. Eberron was the first campaign I ran that included the fantastic in its core structure. From the first, I was hooked.

My next homebrew will be more fantastic. I welcome the changes to the flavor of the game. I believe that D&D has always treated the fantastic as something tacked onto the world. Here are the changes that have been introduced that I welcome with open arms:

1) Demarginalization of non-human races

2) Introduction of new races based on fantasy into the PHB (Dragonborn and Tiefling). The hobbit/halfling was already present, so this brings the total number up to three.

These elements do not necessarily have to push the mundane out of the world. One of the first things I did when designing my upcoming 4e campaign world was to work out the weather patterns for the region based on latitude and terrain. When I include fantastic elements, such as the chaos storm (caused by the manifestation of the Entelechy of Entropy), it stands out in stark contrast to the surrounding weather patterns that are based on real world models.

As to my points above, I don't think these elements necessarily detract from the mundane aspects of the campaign. D&D races (including the tiefling and the dragonborn) seem to resemble the aliens of Star Trek more than the truly alien. They are like humans with funny ears and/or head adornments. Even their cultures show elements of real world culture. This makes them fantastic enough to satisfy most players, while simultaneously familiar enough that they can be role-played easily. IMO, these races are more mundane than fantastic, in the same ways that D&D humans are.

I agree with the original poster that the most enjoyable campaigns will be those that balance the fantastic elements against a backdrop of the mundane. I disagree that any of the additions to the core that we've seen thus far indicate that D&D 4e will inhibit the mundane. I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am.

 

[Reynard]

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.

If the Feywild ends up looking in the final product like it is described in W&M, it is pretty fantastic -- not quite so alien as Exalted Wyld, but pretty close. The same can be said for the Shadowfell -- everything has an exaggerated feel to it.

Now, like I said, that's not bad. What it means though, is that the "real world" of the game can and should be less exagerrated, resembling our world more, because those planes/subsettings need to feel fantastical and alien. if the "real world" is chock full of floating castles and firefalls and sentient plagues, then the Feywild, the Elemental Chaos and the Shadowfell all lose some of their "oomph".

 

[Reynard]

Unfortunately one of the iron laws of role-playing games is that the likelihood of cat-people appearing in a setting or game is directly proportional to the number of expansions that setting has had.

I believe that's the fourth law of thermodynamics.

 

[Clavis]

A good exercise if you're thinking about this topic is to do some thought experiments involving real world societies and magic. I get side tracked with experiments like that quite often when I sit down to do some world design and a lot of the time it's hard to escape the conclusion that magic would have a huge impact on society and leave it looking vastly different. Look at how technology has changed things in the real world over the last couple of centuries and it becomes even more difficult to just tack magic onto historical societies and hand wave the impact under the rug if you're in this frame of mind.

Something to remember is that medieval Europe behaved as if magic and miracles were real. People really believed in griffins and dragons and manticores, and expected to run into them if they traveled to the wrong places. As long as magic is hard to learn, it will remain esoteric. It might not have much effect on the larger society, because ordinary people just can't afford it. Take a look at how much even a simple potion of healing costs, and compare that to the average person making only 1sp a day. I personally find it highly unlikely that people who could actually twist reality to their desires will become simple shopkeepers, stocking +1 swords for the occasional passing adventurer. More likely they will become arrogant and secretive, and regard human affairs as petty nonsense. I think that ordinary people would fear, hate, and resent wizards too much to want anything to do with them. As for clerics, medieval people also believed that miraculous healing and the like actually occurred. The fact that nobody ever saw anyone be healed didn't matter. They acted as if miracles happened anyway. Faith and superstition are funny like that.

 

[Kesh]

Though, really, is a cat-person any more fantastic than a dragon-man or a spiky guy with horns and a tail?

Or a hyena-man?

Let's face it, animal-people are fantasy staples, all the way back to the classic minotaur and more. People just react badly to cat-people because it's "too anime."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I believe that's the fourth law of thermodynamics.

Thanks for making me spit tea all over my monitor!

Sad but true, that.

As for your original point, yeah, I think you're absolutely spot on, and I think that, whilst I'm still keen on the rules changes, and much of the "implied setting" of D&D 4E, the default "fantasy level" will be too far into the "Wack-arse nuttiness" range for me to run any "standard" 4E material. The extreme focus on the fantasy elements does not endear the game to me. I've always liked, if not the grit and grime, then at least the "mundane complexity" of D&D settings. I like different human tribes/clans/nations, their cultures, and so on, and actually, so do my players. In a pulpy kind of way, sure, but for me and my players, interacting with human or "near-human" wierdoes is a lot more interesting than interacting with say, Salamanders, or Dwarves. Indeed, to make Dwarves interesting to them, I think it would take MORE work on my part than making some group of humans interesting.

Similarly, we seem to be seeing a lot of "magical landscape" stuff, and whilst I'm totally down with that in the Feywild or Shadowfell or the like, it's not really of great interest to me as a routine or common part of my campaign world (and that's kind of putting me off the FR4E, now).

I guess at heart, I want something with a strong sense of "magical-ness" to it, but without so much in the way of "blatant" fantasy elements as they're going for. More The Known World of Artesia than Outlands of Warcraft, if that makes any sense.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I like the whole idea of more fantastic. A lot of the stuff I've been reading in Worlds & Monsters is stuff we set out to specifically address with Violet Dawn. I'm all for it.

 

[kennew142]

I like different human tribes/clans/nations, their cultures, and so on, and actually, so do my players. In a pulpy kind of way, sure, but for me and my players, interacting with human or "near-human" wierdoes is a lot more interesting than interacting with say, Salamanders, or Dwarves. Indeed, to make Dwarves interesting to them, I think it would take MORE work on my part than making some group of humans interesting.

I know where you're coming from. This was exactly where I was in previous campaigns. Note that I'm not implying that I've advanced, or made progress, or anything like that. My own tastes have changed. One of the things that every GM and gaming group must decide for itself is how they deal with non-human races. I don't think that numerous human cultures is terribly compatible with numerous non-humans. Too many human cultures marginalizes non-humans.

It is possible to run an enjoyable game in either style. IMO it doesn't make sense to say that humans are open and accepting of dwarves, elves, halflings, gnomes and half-orcs, but not of tieflings and dragonborn. If the former are accepted because they are common in the campaign world, then shouldn't the others be accepted if they are common in the campaign world? It's okay for someone to say that he won't use them because he doesn't like them, or because they don't fit the flavor of the campaign. I think its a little ridiculous when they make claims that these races objectively could not be accepted by the human populace, or that they (as opposed to other non-humans) make the game unrealistic.

Similarly, we seem to be seeing a lot of "magical landscape" stuff, and whilst I'm totally down with that in the Feywild or Shadowfell or the like, it's not really of great interest to me as a routine or common part of my campaign world (and that's kind of putting me off the FR4E, now).

I guess at heart, I want something with a strong sense of "magical-ness" to it, but without so much in the way of "blatant" fantasy elements as they're going for. More The Known World of Artesia than Outlands of Warcraft, if that makes any sense.

I suspect that what we've seen thus far in the previews is not as prevalent as it would seem. The previewers are giving us a taste of the new coolness, in the same way that movie teasers/trailors show more violence (or funny) bits per minute than the movie will. I could be wrong, but I doubt it - and hope that I'm not.

I will be including some magical terrain in my next campaign, but I expect it to stand out against the predominant mundanity of the whole. I hope that's the case with the new FR as well as published scenarios.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I'm going to address Reynard's post "backwards" ...

If W&M is any way to judge, 4E will be constantly reminding us DM's to remember the fantasy part of the FRPG. And I agree. But we can't forget the mundane, everyday aspects either, lest we lose the "fantasy".

Agreed. But I think D&D to date has kind of undershot the mark though when stressing the fantastic. As they also noted in W&M, the only mounts price-listed on the PHB are mundane animals like horses and mules. There's nary a gryphon or healing potion to be seen, with a few "alchemical" products being the sole suggestion that there's anything magical at all in the local bazaar. I'd say that D&D was previously 98% mundane, and that 4E is shooting for 75%. Or something like that.

And this makes sense. I agree with Monte's assertion that a purely mundane city just doesn't "make sense" in D&D world. If you premise elves, wizards, dragons and 100,000+ years of recorded history (including Djinn, Mindflayer, Giant and Dragon "Ages"), then nothing should be even 75% mundane as you and I understand it. I think 4E is still under-shooting the mark with some of their art that depicts Tudor cottages and French castles.

Other course, as others have mentioned, some concessions have to be made to allow 21st century, mundane, human players to "cope" with the D&D world they find their PCs in. So I think it's a good balance.

In addition, the mundane is more familiar and familiar encourages immersion and immersion makes the game more "real" and when the game feels more "real" and you suddenly pull out a big giant walking space-god-robot thing that wants to eat the planet, the implications and consequences wrapped around that fantastic element are more real. And therefore, much "bigger" and much "cooler" than it would have been as just another deimonkibot among many.

Agreed, but I'm not sure that everyone wants to stress the fantastic that way. I mean, most people don't play Star Wars to bask in the fantastic glow of Force powers; they want to blow up Storm Troopers (and fairly mundane activity), and the Force is just one way to do it. Or they tell stories, or roleplay, etc. In fact, I don't think any of Robin Law's gamer categories is "Plays for cool fantasy moments."

I guess what I'm getting at is that this may be a "fake" concern, in the sense that you're only real concern is not breaking the immersion, and thus hurting gameplay.

I think that what's going to happen is that when 4E first comes out people will first play it 90% mundane, and then slowly turn the dial up on the fantastic as they learn to cope. It's kind of like slowly adding hot water to the bath, rather than jumping right into the hot end of the sauna.

I like my fantasy firmly rooted in the mundane because it makes the fantastic that much more so.

As a current Iron Heroes player, you won't get any arguments from me here. But you have to consider then whether the full D&D class list is really for you. The classes and races available to PCs and NPCs (and hence, what they can do to cause effects) really drive the flavor and feel of the campaign. If you're going to have high-level spellcasters, it ain't gonna be mundane. That's just how it works.

What I've found playing Iron Heroes (and a little Burning Wheel) is that the only way to really play a low fantasy game is to have low fantasy classes. You may have to consider limiting your class list to Fighter, Rogue and Warlord, with perhaps a little Arcane or Divine "Training" (or whatever they're calling it) to work the occasional ritual or minor magic.

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.

That's not really a relevant point. You can only roleplay and have fun in environments you are familiar with and comfortable in. The PC can't do anything independent of that.