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General Tabletop Discussion
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What Is It About the Fantasy Genre Anyway?
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<blockquote data-quote="The Green Adam" data-source="post: 4609454" data-attributes="member: 50821"><p>IMO, fantasy was first and its easy because the majority of the work is done for you. World-building in Fantasy is a single world into which you can insert one of the thousands of monsters already designed and assembled into a hundred handy manuals. The terrain is our terrain, Earth's terrain, and its people and animals are ours as well. These are the elements that make D&D and similar games so user-friendly. Of course I've seen some awesome design work by some very talented people but the vast majority of the genre is pretty cut and dry, plug and play.</p><p> </p><p>Part of this is because medieval fantasy is based on a coherent past, a set time we are generally familiar with. But what is the future? Is it a low tech universe of wild west worlds and down and out smugglers? Is it vast interstellar empires of mile long starships constantly at war? Is it an alliance of like minded species united to explore and broaden their knowledge? Yes. Very much so.</p><p> </p><p>In SciFi, world-building is <strong>worlds</strong>-building, not to mention developing the interplanetary authorites that govern the space between worlds. Its no aliens...wait...a few...wait...how about, yeah! hundreds of playable alien races. Its anything from cyborged mutant animals to space elevators to the moon to psychic soldiers and on and on.</p><p> </p><p>Bottom line...its a lot of work. But for the life of me I can't figure out why it isn't better represented in the gaming market. As discussed on another thread a while back, if Star Frontiers had been three hardcover books with character classes, high tech artifacts to find and an entire volume of space creatures, we'd all be arguing over whether its 4th edition was true to the majesty of the original.</p><p> </p><p>AD</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Green Adam, post: 4609454, member: 50821"] IMO, fantasy was first and its easy because the majority of the work is done for you. World-building in Fantasy is a single world into which you can insert one of the thousands of monsters already designed and assembled into a hundred handy manuals. The terrain is our terrain, Earth's terrain, and its people and animals are ours as well. These are the elements that make D&D and similar games so user-friendly. Of course I've seen some awesome design work by some very talented people but the vast majority of the genre is pretty cut and dry, plug and play. Part of this is because medieval fantasy is based on a coherent past, a set time we are generally familiar with. But what is the future? Is it a low tech universe of wild west worlds and down and out smugglers? Is it vast interstellar empires of mile long starships constantly at war? Is it an alliance of like minded species united to explore and broaden their knowledge? Yes. Very much so. In SciFi, world-building is [B]worlds[/B]-building, not to mention developing the interplanetary authorites that govern the space between worlds. Its no aliens...wait...a few...wait...how about, yeah! hundreds of playable alien races. Its anything from cyborged mutant animals to space elevators to the moon to psychic soldiers and on and on. Bottom line...its a lot of work. But for the life of me I can't figure out why it isn't better represented in the gaming market. As discussed on another thread a while back, if Star Frontiers had been three hardcover books with character classes, high tech artifacts to find and an entire volume of space creatures, we'd all be arguing over whether its 4th edition was true to the majesty of the original. AD [/QUOTE]
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