WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[Parmandur]

Where are the cars?

Most people in Ravnica take the Subway (page 109). Thing is the equivalents to what you are talking about are not combat based, so don't appear in the card art...bit they are into he Urban Fantasy tie in novels WotC published and in the text of the RPG book.

The electric lightbulbs?

The lighting, like teher HVAV, is magic. Still Urban Fantasy because the amenity is familiar to a modern person, even if the occult mechanics are different (how many people fully understand their HVAV system?).

I'm sure you can find me examples of modern 20th century technology, fashion and architecture in them.

Urban Fantasy is about modernity, not specific technologies. Modernity is a whole, big stichy thing beyond that sort of detail

 

[Parmandur]

Personally, I think that your hypothesis that the appeal of urban fantasy is based on “familiarity” is complete nonsense.

Well, no, thst is how the Urban Fantasy article describes it. Thing is, that familiarity combined with difference also describes an Anthopomrpjic Elephant Wizard riding the subway to his P. I. office near corporate HQ.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

Neither would an Urban Fantasy book set in early modern or Victorian or Edwardian London, but that doesnt preclude them.

Tv and mcdonals and vending machines are not remotely a requirement.

 

[Reynard]

I can't believe you folks are still arguing about the definition of Urban Fantasy.

In the completely fantastical world where WotC did make a Urban Fantasy D&D setting, I imagine it would end up looking more like Percy Jackson or Scion than Dresden Files.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh come on. "I've never been to Tokyo so it's equivalent to Narnia." is the biggest stretch I've seen in my life!

If you have never been to a place, all you know about it is what you have learned from reading books. If you have read more about Narnia than you have about Tokyo, then you clearly know more about Narnia than you do Tokyo.

This is how come the internet is so good at spreading lies about places. Without first hand experience there is no way you can tell fact from fiction.

 

[Corinnguard]

I can't believe you folks are still arguing about the definition of Urban Fantasy.

In the completely fantastical world where WotC did make a Urban Fantasy D&D setting, I imagine it would end up looking more like Percy Jackson or Scion than Dresden Files.

Urban Fantasy comes in two flavors- teen and adult. Percy Jackson would probably count as Teen UF whereas the Dresden Files would count as Adult UF.

 

[Remathilis]

If you have never been to a place, all you know about it is what you have learned from reading books. If you have read more about Narnia than you have about Tokyo, then you clearly know more about Narnia than you do Tokyo.

This is how come the internet is so good at spreading lies about places. Without first hand experience there is no way you can tell fact from fiction.

I can also hop on a plane and physically visit Tokyo. Please advise on how to physically visit Narnia.

 

[Laurefindel]

If you have never been to a place, all you know about it is what you have learned from reading books. If you have read more about Narnia than you have about Tokyo, then you clearly know more about Narnia than you do Tokyo.

This is how come the internet is so good at spreading lies about places. Without first hand experience there is no way you can tell fact from fiction.

I have a hard time getting behind this.

True, I have never been to Tokyo, and Japan is one of the least familiar cultures for east-coast North Americans like me. All I know of it is from movies, the odd documentaries and articles I've seen and read, and second-hand knowledge from friends who lived in Japan or visited the city. But Tokyo remains a real city on planet Earth, inhabited by humans keeping animals as pets, driven by cars and working the technologies I know. The cultural differences are huge, but still very thin compared to how a family of beavers would live, let alone a society shared by intelligent animals

That alone makes me a lot more familiar with Tokyo than Narnia even if I had written it.

 

[Corinnguard]

I can also hop on a plane and physically visit Tokyo. Please advise on how to physically visit Narnia.

That would require finding a port key and a walk-in wardrobe closet.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There you go arguing semantics rather than addressing the point.

Star Wars had fast food. It has credit and banks. It has self propelled air and ground transportation. It has vending machines. And it has magic (The Force). It even has a planet-wide city.

Ergo, Star Wars is Urban Fantasy.

...

The presence or absence of an analog to the modern world doesn't count it HAS to be the same as the modern world's version. The point is that the world outside the your door is magical, and it's the blending of familiar with fantasy that makes the genre work. It has to, on first glance, look like our world. Ravnica doesn't. Eberron doesn't.

That simply is not the case.

The point of the urban enviroment is to immediately understand and have expectations for the magic to subvert. It being our world is not a requirement.