delericho said:
I have a real problem with being told such-and-such "isn't fantasy". That smacks of One True Wayism - it may not be your fantasy, but it might well be mine.
(And that's something I really hoped WotC had learned from the controversy over the 4e DMG, and it's advice that particular types of encounters "weren't fun" - the underlying advice was actually good, but it got swamped by the controversy due to the authoritarian tone.)
Wyatt seems to have a real problem admitting that in this article. In fact, since he's also the source of the 4e DMG quote, Wyatt may have a real problem admitting that in general (or he may just be overly fond of broad, inaccurate generalization and gatekeeping). There is spear-rattling tribalism all over the article, staking out territory from the nefarious "other" of science-y explanation and keeping the interior of mythic high fantasy "pure" and untainted by it, telling us ignorant masses "how it is," as if he's got some super special genius snowflake insight into what I
really want to do at my table. The entire tone is pretty unwelcome. It may be intentional to provoke discussion. It's got my hackles up (so, mission accomplished!), but I think it also obscures some of his better points (so, mission failed!).
In his daring rush to defend the walls against science-y flavor text, he's trying to liberate his definition of "fantasy" from anthropology, psychology, biology, evolution...but he seems baldly ignorant of the fact that
fantasy is embedded in these contexts, not removed from it.
That mythic resonance he's all enamored of? That
is psychology, and anthropology, and biology. I mean, why is immortals walking in the mortal world such an appealing idea? Derp, because of how we as humans deal with death and loss and the inevitable entropy of closed systems -- we use psychology and culture to imagine what it would be like to be liberated from our biology, but because our biology is part of what defines us, this makes a creature inherently other.
This is why they could really use someone on the team who knows what they're talking about when it comes to legends and culture (Resumes available upon request, guys.
).
The underlying phenomena in this article deserves a longer medium to address, but briefly, to his main topic headers:
Orc Babies is a matter of campaign tone. If I want a game with a theme of universal, omnipresent good vs. evil, having created or always-evil orcs works fine. If I want a game with more shades of gray and sympathetic villains and difficult moral choices, having orcs with some nuance and variety works better. At the other end of the continuum, if I want a modern game where orcs are just another flavor of humanoid (a la Eberron), I might get rid of alignment entirely and have orcs in the main cities. These are not choices the D&D designers need to make for me.
Dragons, Dragonborn, and Griffons: Created is fine for a game where I want involved deities and artificial beasts. If I want more of an "untamed world" feel, biology (or some fantasy version thereof) makes more sense. This is, again, a choice of tone, not a foregone conclusion that must be enforced.
Mos Eisley and Waterdeep: Elves and dwarves and halflings and gnomes may have mythic resonance, or they might not, again, depending on the feel I'm going for in my game. If it's important that I include those resonances, sure, they're useful, but they're not useful in every game, and it's possible that other races can gain this resonance, too, or not, as I see fit.
So in short, no, you can't tell me what I want out of the game's tone, you
let me decide that for myself. I mean, maybe your basic game has a good mythic tone just because it's simpler to write and provides a compelling hook, and I'm generally cool with that, but don't make the mistake of assuming that this defines the brand. No. What defines D&D is that it can be mythic, or not,
and it's up to me, not James Wyatt and his opinions of what qualifies as true fantasy or not.
