What traditional fantasy conventions are you tired of?

[DungeonmasterCal]

An example from my own gameworld is centaurs: not at all your tree-hugging, nymph-chasing woodland dwellers. When is the last time you saw a horse wild in the woods?

Rather, centaurs are my analog to the Huns: a massive, nomadic horde that covers the eastern Steppes, and has a religious creed that cities must be destroyed (their central religious tenet: "No stone may stand on stone.").

I am SO gonna hijack this.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

all right, scratch whatever else I've said, or rather move it done to the bottom of the list, it's the forests.

Fantasy is nearly always set someplace with glorious forests and that's where the mysticism happens. And don't get me started on craggy mountains.

I'm cool with a lot of things, but this one biome gets way too much attention.

Particularly when modern mysticism seems to me to be much more desert oriented.

There are some things out there that vary it up a little but most of them are labelled exotic, which seems a little silly to me given how much of the earth isn't primeval forests or craggy mountains, it's not like most other things are even unusual or that far apart from each other.

I can't even think of a fantasy series set on the steppes.

 

[MDSnowman]

I am SO gonna hijack this.

Actually that's somewhat how Warcraft handles Centaurs.... they are BAD hombres who have practilly hunted Tauren (minotaur-like creatures) into extinction.

 

[Galethorn]

Ugh. Whereas with a Golden Age lurking in the background, you can have epic struggles like "prevent Osdnaos from reawakening the ancient evil that ended the golden age!", right?

Seriously, though, if things are as good as they've ever been, then what you aspire to is to make them better. Progress doesn't have to be purely technological. Why can't magic get better, more powerful, easier to use, more varied in its applications? Why can't societies get better, with more social justice, leisure time, education, health care, whatever? Why can't the weather get better? Why can't exploration lead people to places they've never seen before, where foreign cultures are still thriving and there are strange new marvels to witness, instead of always skulking through the wreckage of the golden age? Why can't these new improvements have drawbacks or create other problems which must be dealt with by experts and heroes in order to make the world even better?

It's not like there's anything wrong with a lost golden age in and of itself. (Okay, it's totally unrealistic, but this is a fantasy game, so that's not a big deal.) It's SO overused, though. I think it'd be fun to see more settings where the best, most powerful items and magic and whatever are all new developments, rather than just being pale shadows of the wonders of the past.

--
because in real life, the last 50 years have been better than the previous 5000

Well, here's my response;

Yeah.

Anyway, I'm just saying that...well, lemme put it this way; D&D (as opposed to fantasy d20 in general) is generally agreed on as being for pseudo-medieval fantasy settings. Well, in the real world, in medieval europe, there was a time long passed that was remembered as being 'a golden age'; the classical roman and greek eras. To be fair, not that much that the greeks or romans had was lacked in medieval europe, but they still looked back and wished that they could bring together an army of 50,000 men like the greeks supposedly had to assault troy, or could build aquaducts.

Now, I'm just saying that a bygone era, with at least something going for it that's lacking in the present times is in no way unrealistic. Most of the assumptions made by medieval people about roman superiority wasn't true, but Julius Caesar's architects were skilled beyond Charlemagne's by leaps and bounds.

So, in closing, the last 500 years have been a fluke (whose study still occupies historians, political scientists, and anthropologists to this day), and to call bygone golden ages 'totally unrealistic' makes the loremaster in me cringe. Sure, they're used a lot in fantasy, but they are realistic for most settings that takes place in a pre-industrial era...now, if the setting takes place in an industrial era, all bets are off.

And, even though I (think) you were joking, here's a few epic plots for a 'not so golden'-age themed game;

Find the last heir of Flondor the Great, and help him find allies to topple the tyrant who sits on the throne in the west!

Bring the True Faith of the Elder Days to the petty kingdoms!

End the strife of the petty kingdoms!

Find the long-forgotten battle-standard of Flondor the Conqueror, then use it to bring men to your cause; the forging of a new kingdom in the north!

Reunite the petty kingdoms, so that they might stand against the warlord Torgar and his armies!

......you get the picture. Lots of reuniting, nation-building, and so forth. Come to think of it, that second to last one is sounding pretty good. Add in a threat to the <rolls d4> west, and you've got a whole campaign ready to be written and played. Anyway, those are the kinds of plots that just don't seem right to me when things are already in a golden age.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Seriously, though, if things are as good as they've ever been, then what you aspire to is to make them better.

Yeah, to me, that's not very compelling.

"Let's do x, because it'll make y a little better!" does not inspire.

Besides, lost golden age = dungeons full of cool loot, ready for the taking. Without a lost golden age, the only dungeons are recent inventions still inhabited by their creators, and taking the cool loot = theft. Not good for heroic types.

It's not like there's anything wrong with a lost golden age in and of itself. (Okay, it's totally unrealistic, but this is a fantasy game, so that's not a big deal.) It's SO overused, though. I think it'd be fun to see more settings where the best, most powerful items and magic and whatever are all new developments, rather than just being pale shadows of the wonders of the past.

On the other hand, it does seem like every setting in the history of gaming has this lost golden age. Greyhawk, Middle Earth, Eberron, Dark Sun (that was the *point*), etc. Some had golden ages that ended with a bang (Rain of Colorless Fire, giant magic on Xen'Drik, etc) and some ended with a whimper (Middle Earth's decay of Gondor).

Maybe there's a reason for this cliche.

It just seems that so much of D&D is about exploring crypts, tombs, temples, and other lost places. So much of *adventure* is going in search of the unknown. If there's no ancient mysteries to explore or lost places to find, then why even play at all? You're left without any sense of wonder. The life of a typical adventurer ceases to be heroic and becomes more like a... job.

Ugh.

A Lost Golden Age adds import and mystery. History has weight, and brings into focus the brevity--and insignificance--of the single lifespan of the character. But being able to interact with history (through the exploration of old places or involvement with ancient prophecy or whatnot) simultaneously humbles and glorifies a character.

-z

 

[VirgilCaine]

Maybe there's a reason for this cliche.

Because people like to say, "Things were better back when..."

IMC, the Elves, well. The Elves are pretty much kaput because of their own folly.
Sure, they created the humanoid races as we know it, but this was done to make servants. Great time to be alive, eh?

But then, some of them went underground and were enslaved and tortured and became the Drow. Others were stupid and became Shadow-Bound. Others retreated to the Plane of Faerie, and the rest died because a stupid bugbear, Thurken the Reviled, long ago wished all elves dead...and he did, kind of. They died and then they came back as various pseudo-vampires, sucking the life from others to maintain their own grotesquely long lifespans. Oh, and I almost forgot the Aztec-elves, servants of the Yuan-Ti/Dragon empire.

Then theres the ancient, destroyed kingdom of crystalmancers (c.f. Crystalmancy: the Powers of Gems) in a mostly-desert-but-with-some-freaky-magical-exceptions-continent.

So, yeah, theres lots of "Golden Ages" to find, IMC.
Because, frankly, the current situation sucks pretty badly--what with about 1/3 to 1/2 the world (a lot of ocean) enslaved by a dragon /yuan-ti empire, and a monolithic illithid/beholder empire underground the most politically diverse area of the rest of the world...

 

[Incenjucar]

1) Why the heck does nobody just have a golden age in the past AND the present? "Wow, this golden age is great! So great that we can afford to hunt down the last golden age so we can one-up it! Oh Iiiiindiaaanaaa!"

2) -mancy means 'divination'. Necromancy= Corpse Divination. Crystalmancy would be using gems to learn things or learning things about said gems.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

And, even though I (think) you were joking, here's a few epic plots for a 'not so golden'-age themed game;

A little exaggeration for effect, but the complaint is genuine enough. For example:

Find the last heir of Flondor the Great, and help him find allies to topple the tyrant who sits on the throne in the west!

Bring the True Faith of the Elder Days to the petty kingdoms!

End the strife of the petty kingdoms! [..]

Why does it have to be the last heir of a lost dynasty? Why can't it be a charismatic and good-hearted general who was cast out of the tyrant's army and is now trying to muster up a resistance movement? Why can't it be a new faith that's trying to establish itself in the world? Why does settling strife between kingdoms require a lost golden age to be epic and cool? Or uniting kingdoms against a common foe? Or building nations?

In other words, what makes you feel that an epic story centered on creating something grand or defending the world from something evil is improved by being set amidst the ashes of a fallen utopia? Why is that somehow more noble and more heroic than simply creating something grand or defending the world from something evil anywhere else?

And my answer to that is, of course, that it isn't. I disagree with Zaruthustran that the only history which can add weight, import, and mystery is one where our ancestors were wiser and stronger and braver and cooler and wealthier than us. I also disagree with the idea that the absence of a lost civilization of wonders turns adventuring into a tedious chore.

Seriously, who thinks like that? Isn't building a nation, inventing something new, or improving the world interesting in its own right, or do you REALLY need it all to be just a tiny step towards recapturing some lost knowledge that (better, wiser, stronger) people learned a thousand years ago, before the apocalypse claimed them and plunged the world into ignorance and despair?

I'll give you the tombs full of untold riches, though. You can't really have that kind of junk unless you have a rich civilization that died before it could tell anything about itself. But yeesh, that's hardly the beginning and end of all epic, interesting, and involving storylines. And not having had a Golden Age in the past in no way means that you are confined to simply playing IN the Golden Age...just because nothing before the current era was perfect in no way implies that the current era IS perfect, right?


I'm really just saying that I'm sick of Golden Ages. They infest these settings like a plague, and I'm starting to get a little ticked off at 'em. Just a brief nod to the idea that, hey, societies tend to advance, even without magical ways of defending themselves, healing injuries, and making things easier. A suggestion that the great heroes that the PCs are aiming to become will genuinely be among the greatest ever, instead of pale reflections of the TRULY great heroes of a thousand years ago. A setting that focuses on how new advances and abilities are creating new problems which must be dealt with, instead of all the worst things in the world deriving from some unnameable ancient evil which destroyed utopia once and seeks to do it again.

And if you disagree with me, that's fine.

--
of course, i'm right and you're wrong, but that's fine

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Not to throw a curve into the really good posts these last few have been, but simply put, the things I'm most tired of in D&D are archetypal or iconic classes. I wish wish wish wish there was a workable and BALANCED system out there for d20 that alllowed you to start with a race and then by purchasing your abilities, skills, feats, and other options, you can truly create a unique and memorable character. What about the fighter who learned "just enough magic" to get by because his great-granny could witch warts of folks in the village, or the magician who had to really learn to defend himself because of a rough background?

Don't get me wrong, I've loved playing these iconic classes for nearly 20 years, but to me, even in an unrealistic fantasy world, they are the most unrealistic things of all.

I'm done.

 

[Galethorn]

Well, I agree that golden-age-ism does infest fantasy settings, and I agree that those various plots I suggested would work just as well if it wasn't the heir of a long lost dynasty, but I happen to like golden-age-ism, so I'll just mark this off as a difference in taste.

By the way, it's good to have an argument on the internet without it turning into a flame war...however, I'm a bit worried about the safety of my brain after looking at your avatar...