D&D General Why Fantasy? Goin' Medieval in D&D

[Paul Farquhar]

In wild-west games the motivating literature has gun fights being really dangerous with a single shot. Do the PCs have hero armor?

Ever played Boot Hill? The answer in that game is no. It's extremely deadly.

 

[Cadence]

"After these words, the prince of the Weather-Geats
Was impatient to be away and plunged suddenly:
Without more ado, he dived in to the heaving
Depths of the lake. It was the best part of a day
Before he could see the solid bottom."

(emphasis mine) Where is it three days straight? I mean, sure, swimming underwater for hours is still superhuman, but let's keep to the text, at least, right?

I'm not sure it matters for the point if it is 3 hours, or 3 days...

I was surprised that google turned up three days as an answer to how long was beowulf underwater without giving any quotes to support it.

 

[Cadence]

Ever played Boot Hill? The answer in that game is no. It's extremely deadly.

No. And thanks!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I bother. I like history. Even if it is infused with fantastic elements like actual magic, or gods that actually exist and intervene. Fantasy needs to be grounded in some semblance of historic verisimilitude to have any appeal for me. And since—and this is a purely personal opinion of mine—I don't like magitech and steampunk, I prefer going back instead of forward in time. I just can't stand swashbuckling musketeers riding magic trains and wearing laced velvet shirts.

Something like Design Mechanism's "Mythic Britain/Logres", TLG's "Codex Nordica/Germania/Slavorum/Celtarum" or Mongoose's "Vikings of Legend" is right up my alley.

Good for you but aside from knowledge of the period in question D&D as is, caters to you. Unless you need a less magic system. D&D has been magic heavy since its inception and is not likely to change. It is a core value of the game.

However, as the player base ages and expands we are likely to see the game catering to a wider audience and they like steam punk, or even amine style fighters and that is likely where the game will go.
The majority of the posters here are like, 15% of the market these days.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Good for you but aside from knowledge of the period in question D&D as is, caters to you. Unless you need a less magic system. D&D has been magic heavy since its inception and is not likely to change. It is a core value of the game.

However, as the player base ages and expands we are likely to see the game catering to a wider audience and they like steam punk, or even amine style fighters and that is likely where the game will go.
The majority of the posters here are like, 15% of the market these days.

I don't like arguments like this because they read as, "you and most everyone who posts here are irrelevant to modern D&D, so stop cluttering up the internet with your outdated opinions".

 

[overgeeked]

I don't like arguments like this because they read as, "you and most everyone who posts here are irrelevant to modern D&D, so stop cluttering up the internet with your outdated opinions".

It sucks, but it’s basically WotC’s stance. Do you really think they’re taking the grognards’ opinions over the majority of their new fans’ opinions? WotC is happy to take our money, but we’re a drop in the bucket.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There's a reason WotC shut down their board about the same time they really ramped up market research efforts -- they had to realize that the demographics didn't support the cost.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It sucks, but it’s basically WotC’s stance. Do you really think they’re taking the grognards’ opinions over the majority of their new fans’ opinions? WotC is happy to take our money, but we’re a drop in the bucket.

This not a WotC site. We should at least respect each other.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This not a WotC site. We should at least respect each other.

I'm 100% fine with the knowledge that I'm no longer the target demographic for WotC. That just means I have no expectation that the game is going to hack with my interests. I have no problems expressing those in discussions, but if I drift into the "D&D ought to" line of discussion, I'm not offended by the reminder that I'm likely not going to see that. Then I can find out what works for changes or even if there's a better system for me. D&D doesn't belong to me and, more importantly, I don't belong to it.

 

[Willie the Duck]

There's a reason WotC shut down their board about the same time they really ramped up market research efforts -- they had to realize that the demographics didn't support the cost.

Everything I'd heard indicated that they weren't using it for market research, so much as just a goodwill/interest-generating product, and that it wasn't their view of a demographic that changes (if that were the case, why do it right before the initial 5e release, when they clearly were trying to recapture lapsed grognards?) so much as independent internet forums that they thought were ceding ground to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

 

[MGibster]

I would say (and I have said) that another reasons that fantasy predominates in the RPG world is because fantasy, moreso than any other genre, particularly lends itself to both the "campaign" and to the reward play loop (zero-to-hero) that so many people enjoy.

I wasn't so sure about this until I gave some thought to the reward play-loop. After all, there were plenty of television shows during the 50s and 60s with stories that could be viewed as a campaign including Rawhide, Gunsmoke, and Bonanza for example. On Rawhide, each week Gil Favor leads our band of cowboys through various adventures as they drive a herd of cattle from San Antonio to Missouri which sure sounds like a campaign to me. But there's a decided lack of reward play-loop examples. When Rowdy Yates guns down a no good varmint he doesn't immediately loot the corpse for +1 Boots of Scooting or that +2 Smoke Wagon of Doom the dead cowpoke carried on his hip. When Wishbone helps a sodbuster deliver her child he doesn't expect monetary compensation in return. I'm not convinced fantasy lends itself better to a campaign mode but maybe it does on the reward play loop.

What is surprising is the extent to which some people assert that D&D necessarily resembles medieval Europe- or would have feudalism (to use the example that was brought up in the other thread). To start with, D&D is fantasy, but while it borrows tropes from European (and other) fantasy stories, it doesn't resemble any specific historic period so much as it resembles ... itself.

In the other thread that went off on feudalism, I likened D&D settings to theme parks. It's like visiting Walt Disney World in Florida and going to the Star Wars world, then to Epcot, then to Animal Kingdom, then to Magic Kingdom. Each one of them is completely fake with a veneer designed to help visitors have a good time and separate them from their money. Likewise, D&D settings exist primarily to give player characters a place to adventure in. I don't believe they were ever really designed to model anything realistically.

 

[Umbran]

This not a WotC site. We should at least respect each other.

We can respect each other as people, while still recognizing that we are not the most important thing to WotC.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Everything I'd heard indicated that they weren't using it for market research, so much as just a goodwill/interest-generating product, and that it wasn't their view of a demographic that changes (if that were the case, why do it right before the initial 5e release, when they clearly were trying to recapture lapsed grognards?) so much as independent internet forums that they thought were ceding ground to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The people on the forums held no research value because they weren't the primary or even secondary demographic, as shown by research. Forums cost money, and had no value. Closed. This doesn't fight against anything you said, it's another line of reasons.

Also, it's not going to be leaked that there was little to no value to the posting on the forums that WotC cared about. At least, not after 4e's small PR disaster of alienating loud minorities of fans by doing that.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In the other thread that went off on feudalism, I likened D&D settings to theme parks. It's like visiting Walt Disney World in Florida and going to the Star Wars world, then to Epcot, then to Animal Kingdom, then to Magic Kingdom. Each one of them is completely fake with a veneer designed to help visitors have a good time and separate them from their money. Likewise, D&D settings exist primarily to give player characters a place to adventure in. I don't believe they were ever really designed to model anything realistically.

D&D is to medieval history as the German Pavilion in EPCOT is to Berlin.

 

[payn]

D&D is to medieval history as the German Pavilion in EPCOT is to Berlin.

Im not a Disney adult and haven't been to EPCOT since I was 10. Is that the German Pavilion is nothing like Berlin?

 

[Cadence]

I always liked that the 1e DMG tried to make it be wide open, even if it was "loosely based on Feudal European technology, history and myth".

Spoiler: Forms of Government

Spoiler: Royal and Noble Titles

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Im not a Disney adult and haven't been to EPCOT since I was 10. Is that the German Pavilion is nothing like Berlin?

Correct. The German Pavilion is not Berlin.

 

[MGibster]

Of course they are. You think the dinosaur people living in the Earth's core are real?

I for one don't want to live in a world where they're not.

I think sort-of-medieval works because it doesn't hit the uncanny valley issue.

I believe this is why guns have been a difficult introduction to D&D for many people. They just yank us out of the fantasy setting because they seem more real.

We can respect each other as people, while still recognizing that we are not the most important thing to WotC.

I have it on good authority that I am God's gift to the world. I can only assume that includes D&D.

 

[Umbran]

D&D is to medieval history as the German Pavilion in EPCOT is to Berlin.

So, like, D&D has more "Oompah music" per square foot than history?

 

[Fifth Element]

I always liked that the 1e DMG tried to make it be wide open, even if it was "loosely based on Feudal European technology, history and myth".

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That's especially funny since he social class in UA.