Why is fantasy the dominant RPG genre?

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think the main reason is this: While it is possible to have a D&D campaign where you need to know the world very well and constantly worry about the consequences of your actions, often you don't have to. In most settings, it is easy to go into some dungeon somewhere, kill a few orcs or other creatures you don't like, and loot the place. That's a simple plot, and quite cathargic. Sure, there may be some background plot that explains just why you are doing all this breaking, entering, and racially motivated killing, but in the heat of the moment you usually don't have to worry about it.

Now take a science fiction setting. Take Transhuman Space, for example - possibly the most brilliant SF RPG setting currently out there, but the endless possibilities of technological progress means that there are lots of things for both players and GMs to keep track of. Most characters have vast powers at their disposal - and that makes the setting very complicated. Compare that to D&D, where you know exaclty what your character can and can't do...

Oh, and there is no such thing as a "simple combat adventure" in Transhuman Space, either.

 

[Stormborn]

This is only true for the US market. The situation is vastly different in Europe or Japan.

Really, there are lots of comics published by European artists over here - but when they do a superhero comic, it is almost inevitably some kind of parody. Chalk it up to cultural differences...

You are, of course, absolutely correct; and I should have been more specific. I knew that (as I find that most of the comic authors I like are European anyway), and think it kind of proves my point. The RPG Culture is a fantasy oriented one, just as the US Comic Culture is a Superhero oriented one, although they may be changing to some degree.

Also, I once again find myself agreeing with d4. Fantasy gaming takes just as much or as little work on the players part as any other genre, it just depends on the group and the style of play.

Personally, while fantasy is a large part of my groups experiance, I would easily say that over half of it has been horror, modern dark fantasy, or pulp/adventure kind of gaming without any of the "traditional" fantasy trappings.

(I resist my formal education by not insisting we start defining terms here....resisting...resisting...)

 

[Kichwas]

Why drive on the right side of the road?
Why is a bicycle seat so poorly designed that it can actually sterilize men who use it?

Why does a computer keyboard have the layout of a typewriter even though this leads to carpal tunnel issues?

Why is blue male, and pink female?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Chicken or Egg, who's first?

Why do words get spelled with silent characters?

Why racism?

Paradigms - once it's adopted it sticks.

Fantasy came first to RPGs, so people associate the two and feel a comfort zone there. There are plenty of genres with just as much potential that get passed up in importance...

 

[jester47]

I had a revelation the other day (ok it was about a year ago, but now I can share here as my friends have heard it ad nauseum.) while working.

Simply put:

Fiction = Fantasy.

Its just the degree of the fiction and how obvious it is that separates what we call Genres. Mystery is simply someones fantasy about solving a mystery. Horror is a fantasy about scary and/or supernatural things, science fiction is fantasy about what we could do with science in the future pending certain discoveries. Fantasy (capital F) is simply fiction with no holds barred.

So I think that is why Fantasy gets the RPG because it is easier to abstract that the other more realistics fantasies.

Aaron

 

[Corinth]

Got a link to save us the effort of looking?

http://www.enworld.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=listarticles&secid=2

Start at the first Dancey interview and work your way down.

 

[rounser]

http://www.enworld.org/modules.php?...rticles&secid=2 <http://www.enworld.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=listarticles&secid=2>

Start at the first Dancey interview and work your way down.

Can't seem to find what you're referring to. In fact, I found some stuff which downplays D&D's genre as more or less irrelevant to it's success:

Yes. The idea is to abstract the "game" inside Dungeons & Dragons and reduce it to a genre-neutral set of concepts and rules. Then, we'll layer on a thick helping of D&D-type fantasy elements, like the standard D&D classes, races, spells & monsters. In the future, we might layer on a science fiction layer, or a horror layer, or any other genre we think would be interesting. In fact, Jonathan Tweet feels that a very strong "rules light" version of D&D could easily be constructed from the existing manuscript; being completely compatible with but just smaller in scope and application than the full blown 3rd Edition D&D rules. There is a clear path, in fact, to a way to make D&D completely diceless! We may experiment with some of those options (or other people may choose to invest the time and energy to do so) via the D20 rules and the Open Gaming movement. Only time will tell.

Stuff like the above seems to imply that there's nothing inherently successful about D&D's ingredients. In fact; he goes on to say that it was sheer elbow grease that caused it's success (which can't be denied on the level that unless you do something, nothing happens):

Neither game would have been successful had it merely been "a good idea". There are good ideas in gaming all the time. The difference in both cases was a management team able and willing to take tremendous personal risks in order to establish a market presence and develop a network of consumers when confronted with a good idea.

In fact, if anything, Dancey and WotC seem to have been of the opinion that there were many genres which could form the basis of the next success on the level of D&D, which is sort of the opposite to the stances I see people taking here (which is that there is something special about fantasy). In taking a rules-focused stance, it's probably easy to downplay the value of ideas and relative worth of genres, which is fair enough to a degree. Ideas are cheap, after all, and as Dancey says, good ones arrive all the time. All genres, perhaps, are not equal, though, and their appropriateness may differ with media...contemporary romantic comedies suiting films, horror suiting novels, fantasy suiting (C)RPGs. That's all conjecture on my part, though.

 

[Glyfair]

Personally, I prefer fantasy because I find it easier to suspend disbelief. Usually, if a GM makes an error about some insignificant detail in a fantasy game, no one notices and the game goes on. Even if someone notices it, it's easier to overlook or explain as a "magical detail".

However, if someone overlooks a detail in a modern world scenario, it breaks the illusion. Sure, you may be forgiving of mistakes by the GM, they happen. However, the illusion is gone. Also, you could get one of those players that has to argue everything. While this is a problem in all genres, he'll see more mistakes in a modern game because of his familiarity with the genre.

Science fiction is somewhere in between. Even though the campaigns tend to have differences with the modern world (how much varies by setting), they still seem more familiar somehow.

As an example from a recent movie, if I'm running a modern spy game and have a car chase through Venice, someone whose been there and knows that it can't happen that way will tend to have their sense of illusion hurt or even shattered.

I've run more games in the modern world than fantasy, I'll wager (between superhero games & spy games). However, I still feel more comfortable running games in a fantasy world because I can make up the details and not have to do as much research.

 

[fourthmensch]

There have been many interesting points made here, but if you are looking for a real answer to the question, "Why D&D," then I think that arcady hit the nail on the head.

There are innumerable examples of historical accidents: evolutionary developments that have become frozen in time. Not for their efficiency, not for their appeal, but mostly for irrelevant reasons other than the fact that they were first and that they became influential. This is especially so because the caretakers of D&D have displayed a remarkable adaptability in the cutthroat Darwinism of a capitalist market. They have changed the D&D system down to its fundamental mechanics in order to make it better and ensure that it remains the most widely played and well-liked gaming system.

 

[rounser]

There are plenty of genres with just as much potential that get passed up in importance...

Something you may have failed to consider, but is suggested by your mention of the chicken and egg thing (and by the way, evolutionary theory suggests that the chicken definitely came first)...if the genre of D&D wasn't fantasy, maybe roleplaying might never have taken off.

It was the cool factor of the fantasy elements in the back of Chainmail that "became the tail that wagged the dog", and took over Chainmail's historical play, to quote either Arneson or Gygax (can't remember which). So I put to you this - the genre of real world historical warfare did not provide enough creative momentum to cause the creation of roleplaying games, and I doubt that just any genre would have resulted in it.

Around the same time that D&D was being formed, I've heard that there was some concurrent invention of RPGish ideas in the UK based on sci fi. Who knows if it would have delivered on RPGs if the US had never come up with it - but I do think that the existence of RPGs in general has a lot to do with the exciting ideas of swords & sorcery...although it is conceivable that sci fi, another exciting genre, might have done the same. Not just any old genre would have, though - few are as compelling, and some (such as, I think, horror* or romance) just plain don't fit the format.

*: Actually, I take it back. It's a long shot, but a miniatures game involving killing zombies could provide a stepping stone towards a horror RPG. It seems to be a bit of a stretch from that to the idea of several people sitting around a table with a narrator trying to give them the creeps, though...that might be demanding a bit too much sophistication from the first RPG.

 

[Dirigible]

you think you clever post! you bad post! you fired!