WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[Parmandur]

For me, I think the two biggest elements are a feeling that the world resembles ours but with fantastic elements and that there tension between the mundane and magical. Ravnica or Eberron doesn't resemble the real modern world. And that's the key element. It has to feel like you could walk out your own front door and see something fantastical happen.

I mean, Ravnica does resemble the modern world? Eberron as a whole is not Urban Fantasy, bit one could have easily run an Urban Fantasy campaign in Sharon.

Urban Fantasy does not preclude secondary world: otherwise Perdido Street Station (a major influence on Ravnica) would not be Urban Fantasy, which would be absurd.

 

[Remathilis]

The Dark Tower? That's a compulsive genre hopper like Doctor Who. They do urban fantasy - sometimes. But Dark Tower is most strongly a fantasy western (AKA Weird West).

The MCU for a while was really good at subgenres. Captain America was a war movie and Winter Soldier a political thriller. Thor was urban fantasy and later straight fantasy. Guardians of the Galaxy was space opera. Shang Chi was a kung fu flick. Dr Strange was fantasy/horror and Iron Man sci-fi. But they were all comic book movies first and foremost. I would not lump First Avenger with Saving Private Ryan as a war movie, or Multiverse of Madness with Evil Dead in horror. There is too much comic book DNA to make them fit with more pure versions of the genres.

(Though I might give a pass to Guardians. That feels like the comic book elements are incidental and has more DNA with Star Wars than the Avengers).

 

[Corinnguard]

For me, I think the two biggest elements are a feeling that the world resembles ours but with fantastic elements and that there tension between the mundane and magical. Ravnica or Eberron doesn't resemble the real modern world. And that's the key element. It has to feel like you could walk out your own front door and see something fantastical happen.

Another likeable thing about Urban Fantasy stories is that they are often written from a first-person point of view and are pretty immersive when it comes to the amount of detail in them. They make you feel like you are there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Another likeable thing about Urban Fantasy stories is that they are often written from a first-person point of view and are pretty immersive when it comes to the amount of detail in them.

That comes from noir, specifically Raymond Chandler (a big influence on Dresden). But it’s certainly far from genre-defining.

 

[Remathilis]

I mean, Ravnica does resemble the modern world? Eberron as a whole is not Urban Fantasy, bit one could have easily run an Urban Fantasy campaign in Sharn.

No. Ravnica doesn't have McDonald's and television and credit cards. Sharn doesn't have combustion engines and vending machines. They have magic replacing technology, while urban fantasy has both simultaneously.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sharon

And it’s twin city Tracy?

 

[ZeshinX]

For me, I think the two biggest elements are a feeling that the world resembles ours but with fantastic elements and that there tension between the mundane and magical. Ravnica or Eberron doesn't resemble the real modern world. And that's the key element. It has to feel like you could walk out your own front door and see something fantastical happen.

The movie Bright springs to mind.

 

[Remathilis]

The movie Bright springs to mind.

Quite. Too bad it was a bad movie.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No. Ravnica doesn't have McDonald's and television and credit cards.

It has fast food chains, why would the specific brand matter? There are lots of of places in the real world that also don’t have McDonalds! It even has a specific house (AKA megacorp) dedicated to it, with an equivalent of the Golden Arches logo.

It has banks and credit, it has mass entertainment. Of course actual credit cards and TV were not invented in the 1920s.

Sharn doesn't have combustion engines

It has self-propelled air and ground transportation.

and vending machines.

It has those.

They have magic replacing technology, while urban fantasy has both simultaneously.

If you understand how the magic works, it is technology.

Do you know how an internal combustion engine works? How about a mobile phone? Clark’s law applies, it is effectively indistinguishable from magic.

 

[Remathilis]

And it’s twin city Tracy?