Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jorunkun" data-source="post: 4367387" data-attributes="member: 57929">Also, while I'm rambling, I'd like to comment on why I think there are only a few "gritty" settings and why all the major WotC settings (including 4e's implied one) tend toward high fantasy.If you skim the replies to the OP's question, you'll find that people who like gritty, deep, (presumably) long-running campaigns tend to reduce content rather than expand it: Less races, monsters, classes; limits on powers; reduced scope of the campaign (ie distant gods, limited plane-travel etc).IMHO, at the bottom of this is the problem of breadth versus depth. The more high-fantasy elements your campaign contains, the (exponentially) harder it becomes to make sense of them all in relation to one another. It's hard enough to come up with detailed, credible, deep personae just using the standard set of, say, humans, elves and dwarves. Throw Dragonborn, Tieflings and Mind-Flayers in the mix, and you've got a real challenge on your hands: What are they like, deep down; how do they relate to one another? The more high-fantasy elements a campaign contains, the more it tends toward archetypes and standard genre tropes - often bordering on stereotype and rehash, in my experience.The problem is that the major WotC settings must aim for the broadest possible markets. Exclude certain races and classes and you alienate your customers. Arguably, most people look for expansion of content (new races, classes, feats and powers) in these books. So keeping these players happy is the safe bet.Conversely, publishing a reduced, deep setting will make a few people very happy (cf. Midnight) but it will probably not apeal to the majority of gamers; among them many who actually like gritty/reduced settings but not this kind of gritty.Make sense?J.</blockquote>

Verification