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General discussion (archive)Fantasy RPG genre not all that fantastic anymore?(28 posts)(28 posts)
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Posted September 13, 2011
For me rpg always meant dungeons and dragons. Its my favorite setting. I love exploring dungeons by torchlight and finding rare magical artifacts and fighting ancient monsters and dragons. The medieval fantasy setting is always my favorite. Its such a great escape from todays world.
Posted September 13, 2011
I am bored to freaking tears of generic Tolkeinesque fantasy settings and am desperate for more variety. The funny thing though is that if you go to RPG focused forums and websites they all complain when a game is NOT traditional fantasy.

So... yeah.
Posted September 13, 2011
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Heretic777: For me rpg always meant dungeons and dragons. Its my favorite setting. I love exploring dungeons by torchlight and finding rare magical artifacts and fighting ancient monsters and dragons. The medieval fantasy setting is always my favorite. Its such a great escape from todays world.
I'm actually with you. I mean sure, I like different settings as well to freshen things up especially if it delves into the sci-fi realm but traditional fantasy will always be my favorite. That said, I wish developers would come up with newer game play elements in traditional fantasy RPGs. Hell throw in some Minecraftesque block building for puzzle solving or something just add something new. The setting is fine in my eyes it's the game play that gets stale.
Posted September 13, 2011
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Heretic777: For me rpg always meant dungeons and dragons. Its my favorite setting. I love exploring dungeons by torchlight and finding rare magical artifacts and fighting ancient monsters and dragons. The medieval fantasy setting is always my favorite. Its such a great escape from todays world.
Actually, I don't have a problem with that either, dungeon crawling is fun regardless of the setting (and it doesn't need much of a story to begin with). But the plots of most fantasy RPGs involve more than just ancient dungeons and treasures, and that's where it often gets a bit boring for me. Personally, I think, for example, "Temple of Elemental Evil" would have been a better game without the village of Hommlet and its bland run-of-the-mill quests. And although many will probably protest, I think the NWN campaign would have been better without the main plot, too, if it had just been free exploration hack and slash and dungeon crawling. I generally prefer RPGs that encourage me to follow a story, instead of just wandering around all by myself - but if there's a story to follow, it had better be a good one. ;)
Post edited September 13, 2011 by Leroux
Posted September 13, 2011
I never got why people think Middle-Earth and the standard fantasy setting are the same, if you actually look at it Middle-Earth deviates drastically from it in most ways. The only connection they have is that D&D was 'inspired' by it and based many of their races on it (very loosely too). A Middle-Earth style setting would actually be rather different from what we get, what D&D is based on is pretty much every fantasy idea merged together.

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Heretic777: I love exploring dungeons by torchlight
Shame most CRPGs disregard the need for light, would love the atmosphere of a character walking through a crypt carrying a lantern he needs to keep refilled, one of the things I liked about Twilight Princess.
Posted September 14, 2011
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FlintlockJazz: I never got why people think Middle-Earth and the standard fantasy setting are the same ... what D&D is based on is pretty much every fantasy idea merged together.
Maybe that's because it's basically the same. D&D lifts monsters from pretty much every fantasy setting, true. But the setting itself is pretty much Tolkien-esque.
What else would you call it? The only other stuff I can think of which predates Tolkien and which is kind of like D&D is Howard's stuff and of course Beowulf and the like. Obviously D&D is more like Tolkien. Sure, you might say D&D is even more like some Tolkien derivatives. But Tolkien derivatives are just that. So we call D&D Tolkien-esque.
Fantasy is probably as old as stories and certainly as old as litterature. European fantasy includes not only the Germanic sagas and the stuff they inspired but also the ancient pagan stories and in particular Ovid who was very influencial, the furry stories which are about as old as Beowulf, the Arthurian stuff and so on down the line.
Posted September 14, 2011
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Gyrocoptor: Is anyone else just kind of 'ho-hum' when they see a fantasy RPG and it's just the same exact thing with a different coat of paint? It seems like very many role-playing games are just set in medieval times with magic and only the places and lore are different.

You get a very Middle Earth-like setting with lush rolling hills and forests right next to the big bad evil guy's lair of doom and despair and volcanoes, everything has a very renaissance feel to it, etc. You don't usually see anything crazy like giant floating island nations or roaming volcanoes or some such. Just doesn't seem very fun to me parading around in yet another generic fantasy medieval setting.

There's also the fact that when a game lets you create a character, the most boring option to me is the races. I guess it's my biggest complaint, since many don't really bring anything new to the table. You're lucky if you get to play as something other than human, elf, dwarf, orc, or gnome. It's especially a dick move when there's a unique or interesting race in the game that might be cool to play as, but it's an NPC race only.

Does anyone else think this way?
Also, I would like some suggestions of RPG/fantasy games that don't completely adhere to the generic fantasy tropes. Preferably ones not found on Good Old Games since I already know about games like Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, and Arx Fatalis that do a fantastic job with the setting and characters.
I agree. I really hate playing the Played out races(unless its a D&D Game). Which is why I bought the Dark Spawn Chronicles for Daagon Age Origins. So I could play as the Darkspawn. :D Other then that, Most of the Elder Scrolls have Beast races like Lizardmen
Posted September 14, 2011
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Landeril: I agree. I really hate playing the Played out races(unless its a D&D Game). Which is why I bought the Dark Spawn Chronicles for Daagon Age Origins. So I could play as the Darkspawn. :D Other then that, Most of the Elder Scrolls have Beast races like Lizardmen
Huh, there's a choice other than human, elf, and dwarf in that game? I might have to check that out...
What usually gets me is the races. I'd love for developers to add in more unique races to play as, even if it's just in addition to the standard ones. Or even put a cool twist on them, like the Elder Scrolls elves. It doesn't necessarily have to be beast races, just something new (or old. Minotaurs!).
Posted September 14, 2011
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Landeril: I agree. I really hate playing the Played out races(unless its a D&D Game). Which is why I bought the Dark Spawn Chronicles for Daagon Age Origins. So I could play as the Darkspawn. :D Other then that, Most of the Elder Scrolls have Beast races like Lizardmen
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Gyrocoptor: Huh, there's a choice other than human, elf, and dwarf in that game? I might have to check that out...
What usually gets me is the races. I'd love for developers to add in more unique races to play as, even if it's just in addition to the standard ones. Or even put a cool twist on them, like the Elder Scrolls elves. It doesn't necessarily have to be beast races, just something new (or old. Minotaurs!).
In Dragon Age? Yeah if you buy a DLC.
Posted September 14, 2011
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Leroux: Anyway, my pet peeve with RPGs would not necessarily be that they stick to the same old settings but that they keep telling the same old stories and use the same old patterns. I'm sure you could use a generic fantasy world as background for an exciting and innovative plot.
I think you've hit the nail right on the head there. I think I'm exactly in the same boat, I don't really care what the "setting" is (medieval/fantasy/future/scifi/post-apocalyptic/western/oriental...), the plot is what gives the real feel at least to games where the story means anything.

I don't have to think further than Ultima Underworld. The setting that you're trapped into an unfamiliar dungeon accused of kidnapping the daughter of the king etc. was quite fresh to me originally, at least compared to "you are the farmer's boy..." or "an unknown band of heroes decides to go see the world and fight the evil..." plots. So what if I use a sword to fight trolls and ogres?

(Then again, it seems to me that the "you are accused of something and wake up in the prison, or flee from one" is quite overused setting in many RPGs, ever since the first Elder Scrolls: Arena game.)

Same to System Shock, the beginning premise was really helping to set the feeling for the rest of the game, even if the scifi setting wasn't very original in itself.
Post edited September 14, 2011 by timppu
Posted September 14, 2011
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timppu: (Then again, it seems to me that the "you are accused of something and wake up in the prison, or flee from one" is quite overused setting in many RPGs, ever since the first Elder Scrolls: Arena game.)
True. But overused or not, even if it's become a cliché, too, I still think it's a more interesting approach to start a story than with a farmboy in search of adventure, because it guarantees immediate involvement by way of a convincing personal motivation and a critical situation you have to deal with in order to survive, right from the start. Plus, in many cases, a mystery about your character's past: how he/she got there and if he/she actually did anything horrible or not.
Post edited September 14, 2011 by Leroux
Posted September 15, 2011
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FlintlockJazz: I never got why people think Middle-Earth and the standard fantasy setting are the same ... what D&D is based on is pretty much every fantasy idea merged together.
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h.fat: Maybe that's because it's basically the same. D&D lifts monsters from pretty much every fantasy setting, true. But the setting itself is pretty much Tolkien-esque.
What else would you call it? The only other stuff I can think of which predates Tolkien and which is kind of like D&D is Howard's stuff and of course Beowulf and the like. Obviously D&D is more like Tolkien. Sure, you might say D&D is even more like some Tolkien derivatives. But Tolkien derivatives are just that. So we call D&D Tolkien-esque.
Fantasy is probably as old as stories and certainly as old as litterature. European fantasy includes not only the Germanic sagas and the stuff they inspired but also the ancient pagan stories and in particular Ovid who was very influencial, the furry stories which are about as old as Beowulf, the Arthurian stuff and so on down the line.
But they're not, they are actually very different in both setting and feel. There are no fireball-wielding wizards in Tolkien, no healer priests, Tolkien's setting is fundamentally different in both execution and style and would not work as a D&D game, for one thing magic is way too subtle in Tolkien for it to be the standard fantasy fare. Sure they both utilise certain things but that's because they both took from fairy tales and legends, which established the idea of dragonslaying and evil wizard towers long before, and that D&D took liberally from Tolkien while distorting immensely and stealing from other sources too.

I would call the Standard Fantasy Setting the D&D setting, because that is what people are actually thinking of when they think of Fantasy even if they have never played it before because it has become so ingrained in our culture. It is D&D that established so many of the cliches and conventions we now take for granted such as the healer-priest, paladins, druids that shapechange and summon animals, mages use staves and can't wear armour, etc. Tolkien's setting has too many aspects that mark it as different to be taken as the base.
Posted September 16, 2011
^ Yeah Tolkien's MIddle Earth was more a strict ode to Norse mythology of elves, dwarves & linnorm type of dragons - which are less powerful than AD&D dragons (but still no joke of a threat either), and magic is more nature-centric, as opposed to all the different types of magic in AD&D and other game settings.

In fantasy cRPG's, I don't mind games in a generic fantasy setting, nor do I mind having races outside of the human-elf-dwarf etc. standard not available at Player Character creation. Exotic locales & races are nice & dandy, but in RPG's, the narrative is as important as gameplay.
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General discussion (archive)Fantasy RPG genre not all that fantastic anymore?(28 posts)(28 posts)
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