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General Tabletop Discussion
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The urban fantasy market seems awfully stagnant
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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 7626155" data-attributes="member: 19857"><p>I suspect that's because the Dresden Files franchise is as close to "generic urban fantasy setting" as you can get. And I don't meant that as a knock - I personally love the Dresden Files - but that Butcher has basically created a series that is as close to "D&D fantasy" as a genre as the urban fantasy genre gets. His world is basically a "kitchen-sink" world of fantasy and horror tropes - much like the assumptions of a "core" D&D setting is a kitchen-sink of fantasy tropes. He doesn't come up with cutesy-clever names for his creatures, letting vampires be vampires, werewolves be werewolves, wizards be wizards, and faeries be faeries, and mostly doesn't play the "everything you know about X is wrong" game with the monsters either. (The one example I can think of off the top of my head is the various vampire courts, and even there there is specifically the Black Court who have it as a specific plot point that they are 100% Draculas as per Stoker's novel. And it isn't like Red Court and White Court vampires are some unique thing that hasn't appeared before - the psychic vampire and the monstrous creature pretending to be human are both also vampire tropes, just maybe not as well-known). And where he does have setting specific things they tend to be extrapolations of existing fantasy tropes/myth/fairy tales/etc. - like the structure of the Fae Courts, or the Knights of the Cross (who are pretty clearly D&D paladins dropped into a modern setting). All of that not only makes for a setting that is very "gameable" - it also makes for a setting that is very recognizable for anyone who knows the tropes of the D&D fantasy genre.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jer, post: 7626155, member: 19857"] I suspect that's because the Dresden Files franchise is as close to "generic urban fantasy setting" as you can get. And I don't meant that as a knock - I personally love the Dresden Files - but that Butcher has basically created a series that is as close to "D&D fantasy" as a genre as the urban fantasy genre gets. His world is basically a "kitchen-sink" world of fantasy and horror tropes - much like the assumptions of a "core" D&D setting is a kitchen-sink of fantasy tropes. He doesn't come up with cutesy-clever names for his creatures, letting vampires be vampires, werewolves be werewolves, wizards be wizards, and faeries be faeries, and mostly doesn't play the "everything you know about X is wrong" game with the monsters either. (The one example I can think of off the top of my head is the various vampire courts, and even there there is specifically the Black Court who have it as a specific plot point that they are 100% Draculas as per Stoker's novel. And it isn't like Red Court and White Court vampires are some unique thing that hasn't appeared before - the psychic vampire and the monstrous creature pretending to be human are both also vampire tropes, just maybe not as well-known). And where he does have setting specific things they tend to be extrapolations of existing fantasy tropes/myth/fairy tales/etc. - like the structure of the Fae Courts, or the Knights of the Cross (who are pretty clearly D&D paladins dropped into a modern setting). All of that not only makes for a setting that is very "gameable" - it also makes for a setting that is very recognizable for anyone who knows the tropes of the D&D fantasy genre. [/QUOTE]
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