WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[doctorbadwolf]

For the life of me I can't understand why you are still trying to define Ravnica as Urban Fantasy when it is pretty clear Urban Fantasy is Buffy and Anita Blake and Dresden and The Dark Tower etc...

Because it is.

 

[bedir than]

A new setting would just end up looking like the Radiant Citadel and who wants more of that???

I'd absolutely love more Radiant Citadel, but that's also not a new setting that I expect WotC to explore (Romantasy, Urban Fantasy, Born-to-power)

 

[Older Beholder]

But, when I googled Urban Fantasy, I got this...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

For the life of me I can't understand why you are still trying to define Ravnica as Urban Fantasy when it is pretty clear Urban Fantasy is Buffy and Anita Blake and Dresden and The Dark Tower etc...

The Ravnica novel I read was definitely urban fantasy/police procedural.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A couple minutes ago, a friend and fellow D&D player of mine linked me to this article:

Introducing the Urban Fantasy Gazetteer

Click through for an interactive map of contemporary fantasy by state at One of the pleasures of reading contemporary or urban fantasy, as opposed to epic fantasy, is the fact that it is set in ou…

www.genrify.com

The first two paragraphs of this article talk about what makes Urban Fantasy so appealing to some people. The rest of the article mentions which state each Urban Fantasy series took place in.

So you are redefining urban fantasy as “must be set in the US” now?!

The Nightingale would like a word.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

So you are redefining urban fantasy as “must be set in the US” now?!

The Nightingale would like a word.

from the second paragraph:

I didn’t do any international urban fantasies (I’ll do those in a future post)

 

[MichaelSomething]

Let me show you a good example of Urban Fantasy...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Buffy

I would just like to point out that Sunnydale is not a real place, in the US or anywhere else. Nor is it a city. In fact, I would describe it as decidedly suburban fantasy (along with Stephen King and a bunch of other stuff).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Let me show you a good example of Urban Fantasy...

I mean, yo could easily describe K-Pop Demon Hunters as Urban Fantasy if you like. Or The Exorcist. As with any attempt to define a genre, the more tightly you try to define it, the more it slips through your fingers, excluding things you feel certain should be in, and including things you feel sure don't belong.


My feeling is that the zeitgeist of Urban Fantasy is a mash up of D&D style fantasy with crime fiction. The important thing about Harry Dresden is not that he lives in Chicago, the important thing is his job is Private Investigator.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because it is.

I mean, I think there's a pretty clear difference between

• HYPER HYPER magical setting, where nothing more than vaguely like IRL urban environments exist, and
• HYPER HYPER modern-urban setting, where nothing more than vaguely like magical things or events exist

I would not classify Ravnica as "urban fantasy", even though it is literally a city-plane. I would classify it as high magic in an urban context/location. It's sort of like the difference between "Romantasy" and "Romantic Fantasy". The latter is a subgenre of fantasy where romance elements are included, but they are NOT the primary focus; the romance elements are distinctly secondary. The former is a subgenre of romance where fantasy elements are included, but they are NOT the primary focus; the fantasy elements are distinctly secondary.

Some might see this as "you got your chocolate in my peanut butter" or the like, but it really is a distinction that regular, everyday folks have shown they care about. It's why you get responses to books where one person is bitterly disappointed and the other is elated, and the latter says to the former...
"But I thought you said you LIKE fantasy books."
"I do, I just WANTED a romance!"
"It is a romance!"
"No, it's NOT a romance, it's a fantasy story that has a romantic subplot!"
"They're the same thing!"
"NO THEY ARE NOT."

In my personal, likely-uninformed opinion, Ravnica is a High Fantasy setting with an urban focus. Shadowrun has a (dystopian) urban-fantasy setting: it is very very much the urban environment we're used to, plus or minus some extra dystopian grunge and the like, but it also has magic and orks and spirits. That is what most self-professed "fan of urban fantasy" folks would want, other than the dystopian element (many do want that, but not all). They would not want "Lord of the Rings, except it's a fantasy megacity"...by and large. I'm absolutely certain SOME people who call themselves "fans of urban fantasy" would want "Lord of the Rings, except it's a fantasy megacity"; I'm even fairly sure that you can find at least one other person who would think it bizarre that someone might consider Ravnica different from what "urban fantasy" means. Doesn't mean that that's what the typical person is going to understand when you say, "Ravnica is an urban fantasy setting."