Rvturn to 20s plup fantasy. Well muscled (and oiled) men wielding giant greatswords fighting lizardmen from the middle earth for the fate of hyperborea.
god, I feel your pain. I get excited seeing all the really weird fantasy stuff, and - in the context of RPGs - especially the cream of the crop, out-there stuff of later OSR waves, but when I try to make my own stuff or mix ideas it just feels.... wrong. inauthentic. not good enough. the closest i get to recreating the spark is when I choose consciously to riff off something else that someone else has made, or taking an idea underexplored in a more vanilla game and drilling waaay down on it. well, here's to more fruitful tinkering and thinking
The defining trait of fantasy, as a genre, is that it is another world, with its own history, cultures, even its own laws of physics and how reality functions on an atomic level in some cases--so there's kind of a fundamental problem with fantasy games: will you focus on giving the players a world to play in and expect them to get immersed in the lore, becoming people in it, designing the system around accommodating all modes of life, and as a consequence leaving the game unfocused, with no clear purpose of the game, leaving GMs to figure out how to give players clear goals, and ultimately leaving the whole thing out to dry as it attempts to compete with _that_ fantasy RPG? Or, will you make a game with a clear focus on a particular kind of person in your world doing a particular thing, either needlessly describing everything else in the world and making players wonder why they can't play as any of that or leaving everything else in the setting less fleshed out and risking incoherence as everyone uses wildly varying genre awareness to subconsciously fill in the holes, resulting in a world that everyone has a slightly different idea about? Something like cyberpunk, as an example, has no such problem. Cyberpunk worlds are based upon the real world, but highly deviated from it at a pretty recent point in history. There's no need to explain what people other than the "punks" you play as are doing--most are just spending their days working in higher-tech and more dystopic versions of the players' own daily lives. Players might want to play as the top-level executives in a high-stakes business management situation, but you don't need to explain to them why that'd be a different game entirely, as the stratification of society is already built into the genre concept--rarely will a CEO ever meet face to face with the hackers and gun-runners he's hired to sabotage his competition. The gaps that you don't explain in the world are more easily filled with more consistent genre awareness and there's simply less to explain outside of what's directly relevant to PCs. It's not _impossible_ to strike a balance between the approaches in fantasy, but it's tricky... and regardless, various kinds of fantasy worlds are simply not going to all be compelling to everyone anyway, so even a perfectly designed fantasy game with plenty of quirks to grab interest beyond just being technically competent will still just not appeal to every taste. Many people just won't be into it and won't be able to describe exactly why.
idk if it was intentional but showing that Yoshitaka Amano illustration while thinking about untold fantasies really spoke to me. I am yet to find a fantasy setting that evokes in me half the wonder his FF artworks do
While I do invoke the name Fantasy in the anachro-fantasy subgenre I defined (historically inspired aesthetic, but mostly just modern day but with dungeons and monsters), actually kinda hate it as a genre term. First off, its not even a genre. It's too big for that. Really, it's just another name for the supergenre of Speculative Fiction. But beyond that, even a lot of the more defined genres within it have little consensus and right there is the biggest kicker. NOBODY CAN AGREE! Some genres, like High Fantasy have names. But what is Low Fantasy? What is Mudcore? What is Steampunk, really? For these genres with less commonly defined names, you will get as many answers as you have people to ask. Edit 1: Don't chase the fickle mistress. She will never put out for you if you chase her at the same level as she does if you make her come to you. Edit 2: I don't care what the truth is, I am choosing to believe that Firion is a reference to me and my overdesigned mess of a FF-inspired dragon game replacement
Notepad Anon, you need to think in a bigger box, multiverse game but it's pure fantasy. Maybe the players can summon different versions of themselves, maybe they can make worlds in different universes, think BIGGER... really explore the limits of Fantasy!
How about a fantasy setting which takes traditionalism and monarchism into such high extremes that guns , helicopters , tanks and technology is advanced but the societal aspect still stays in its mentality like in the medieval times . While Technology has advanced , magic became very powerful and overshadows the archievement of Technology even in huge strides . Tbh , i take that idea and look how i can turn it into a TTRPG. But nobody can deny that a muscle-packed Paladin with Bucket-helmet and a machinegun while citating the praying-phrases out of a book from his religion to the god of valor shielded him from all harm fights against a Dragon that was cyberfied by his minions , looks actually badass in motion . Or an camouflagedelf-sniper watching over the woods from a very high tree for intruders , catches with his scope a group of orc-mercenaries wandering around the woods to attack a village nearby . Or Dwarves building a one-man Tank in their forge while Blades , axes and guns are shown in the background .
Giant one is interesting but needs a slim spark of hope the giants could win. The giants were quiet when the humans came for the gnomes, but now they dare attack Giants! Game would need crit tables not to unlike Arms Law. Hulk smash indeed.
Are you me? I've been working on the same fantasy game for 10+ years, and while I'm getting the gameplay right (in my opinion), it's lacking a certain spark that will make people either love it or hate it. My hot take, is that fantasy is highly dependent on our culture and what we grew up with. Fairy Tales are very European being tales told by mothers to their daughters based in their locality often to express virtues and morals (it also has the effect to not stray far from home lest the world claim them). Then in 1001 Arabian Nights, the fantasy is all about new things, and the wonders and mysteries of what lies beyond Arabia (while the murderous Sultan stays his hand at killing the woman telling him the stories so that he can listen to her finish the story, before after long, he started to fall for her). We grew up with those stories and others and are thrilled by them. It reminds me of the culinary arts and food. People will like to eat what they grew up with and have fond memories of, even if that food by any resonable metric is "bland" or "generic". Present anything new to them, and they'll view it with suspicion, and won't get the same joy out of it like you did when you ate it. I for one like to cook and I've hosted nights where I'd get my family and friends together to try different foods. While they all praised it, they still went back to what they normally ate. It's just not what they're used to, and it doesn't encompass their scope (Though my family has been more comfortable with adding plain greek yogurt and sour cream into soups since I made them Russian food a few times in the past). My best answer right now is to approach the audience and say, "Hey guys, I got this cool thing relating to what we grew up with! Here's the pitch! I'll run it and let's have a good time!" Thanks for reading my blog.
If you like elves, orcs, the human average, dark holes in the ground and the extended family of evil zanzibart magnates, then do that! I'm sure you'll find a way to give it your own spin. And as for Dragon Lords of the Kirin I'd think a lot of the leverage would come from how the dragons work: are they all the same, barring statistics, or are there breeds of them? Do families try to breed unique talents into their dragons? Like, the Zmey Dragonlords' dragons would be bred to spit sticky, liquid fire, while the DaKirin, first of their name's Dragons would have long horns on their forehead to better fight other dragons, and the Drakon Philosopher-kings' would have stunted limbs, akin to giant serprents, but would so venomous even their gaze could kill a man. Maybe even less specific traits, like scales, build and breath capacity. As you told me once, the moment you have the base pieces of the game you just need to expand from there, but the trick is you can do this with the game's setting and story too! Get freaky! Maybe dragon-kings can have some special capabilities while riding their dragon or while fighting along them a la Eragon or some shit, making them vulnerable to court assassin but dangerous on the battlefield!
Me, personally, I'm very partial to the vibes they had in AMID EVIL, the boomer shooter revival game about a multiverse traveling warrior. I just love the feeling it evoked with tis high-concept locations and synthy soundtrack, but, since it was a boom shoot and not, say, a choice-and-consequences CRPG, the plot and the setting are pretty vague. Maybe something can be done with that. Also, I'd appreciate if anyone could recommend other media that evokes the same kind of feeling, Heretic/Hexen (which, I suppose, inspired AMID EVIL) in my opinion doesn't, really.
Is final fantasy a fantasy? If it is, what makes it a fantasy? If it isn't, what makes it 'not' a fantasy? Is something a fantasy... when the gods are more mortal than they let on? Is fantasy less about the 'what' and more about the 'how'? Is fantasy just the 'other' selection when describing something, the catch all for when a setting doesn't fit anywhere else?
If you dont make where the mountains meet the rivers, I will. It sounds really good.
Rvturn to 20s plup fantasy.
Well muscled (and oiled) men wielding giant greatswords fighting lizardmen from the middle earth for the fate of hyperborea.
I feel you man, trust on that. Inspiration comes when she comes, and hides when she is chased. :(
god, I feel your pain. I get excited seeing all the really weird fantasy stuff, and - in the context of RPGs - especially the cream of the crop, out-there stuff of later OSR waves, but when I try to make my own stuff or mix ideas it just feels.... wrong. inauthentic. not good enough. the closest i get to recreating the spark is when I choose consciously to riff off something else that someone else has made, or taking an idea underexplored in a more vanilla game and drilling waaay down on it.
well, here's to more fruitful tinkering and thinking
0:45 c'mon, bro, you had a perfectly good pic for that pose already!
The defining trait of fantasy, as a genre, is that it is another world, with its own history, cultures, even its own laws of physics and how reality functions on an atomic level in some cases--so there's kind of a fundamental problem with fantasy games: will you focus on giving the players a world to play in and expect them to get immersed in the lore, becoming people in it, designing the system around accommodating all modes of life, and as a consequence leaving the game unfocused, with no clear purpose of the game, leaving GMs to figure out how to give players clear goals, and ultimately leaving the whole thing out to dry as it attempts to compete with _that_ fantasy RPG? Or, will you make a game with a clear focus on a particular kind of person in your world doing a particular thing, either needlessly describing everything else in the world and making players wonder why they can't play as any of that or leaving everything else in the setting less fleshed out and risking incoherence as everyone uses wildly varying genre awareness to subconsciously fill in the holes, resulting in a world that everyone has a slightly different idea about?
Something like cyberpunk, as an example, has no such problem. Cyberpunk worlds are based upon the real world, but highly deviated from it at a pretty recent point in history. There's no need to explain what people other than the "punks" you play as are doing--most are just spending their days working in higher-tech and more dystopic versions of the players' own daily lives. Players might want to play as the top-level executives in a high-stakes business management situation, but you don't need to explain to them why that'd be a different game entirely, as the stratification of society is already built into the genre concept--rarely will a CEO ever meet face to face with the hackers and gun-runners he's hired to sabotage his competition. The gaps that you don't explain in the world are more easily filled with more consistent genre awareness and there's simply less to explain outside of what's directly relevant to PCs.
It's not _impossible_ to strike a balance between the approaches in fantasy, but it's tricky... and regardless, various kinds of fantasy worlds are simply not going to all be compelling to everyone anyway, so even a perfectly designed fantasy game with plenty of quirks to grab interest beyond just being technically competent will still just not appeal to every taste. Many people just won't be into it and won't be able to describe exactly why.
idk if it was intentional but showing that Yoshitaka Amano illustration while thinking about untold fantasies really spoke to me. I am yet to find a fantasy setting that evokes in me half the wonder his FF artworks do
While I do invoke the name Fantasy in the anachro-fantasy subgenre I defined (historically inspired aesthetic, but mostly just modern day but with dungeons and monsters), actually kinda hate it as a genre term. First off, its not even a genre. It's too big for that. Really, it's just another name for the supergenre of Speculative Fiction. But beyond that, even a lot of the more defined genres within it have little consensus and right there is the biggest kicker. NOBODY CAN AGREE! Some genres, like High Fantasy have names. But what is Low Fantasy? What is Mudcore? What is Steampunk, really? For these genres with less commonly defined names, you will get as many answers as you have people to ask.
Edit 1: Don't chase the fickle mistress. She will never put out for you if you chase her at the same level as she does if you make her come to you.
Edit 2: I don't care what the truth is, I am choosing to believe that Firion is a reference to me and my overdesigned mess of a FF-inspired dragon game replacement
Notepad Anon, you need to think in a bigger box, multiverse game but it's pure fantasy. Maybe the players can summon different versions of themselves, maybe they can make worlds in different universes, think BIGGER... really explore the limits of Fantasy!
How about a fantasy setting which takes traditionalism and monarchism into such high extremes that guns , helicopters , tanks and technology is advanced but the societal aspect still stays in its mentality like in the medieval times . While Technology has advanced , magic became very powerful and overshadows the archievement of Technology even in huge strides .
Tbh , i take that idea and look how i can turn it into a TTRPG.
But nobody can deny that a muscle-packed Paladin with Bucket-helmet and a machinegun while citating the praying-phrases out of a book from his religion to the god of valor shielded him from all harm fights against a Dragon that was cyberfied by his minions , looks actually badass in motion .
Or an camouflagedelf-sniper watching over the woods from a very high tree for intruders , catches with his scope a group of orc-mercenaries wandering around the woods to attack a village nearby .
Or Dwarves building a one-man Tank in their forge while Blades , axes and guns are shown in the background .
Giant one is interesting but needs a slim spark of hope the giants could win.
The giants were quiet when the humans came for the gnomes, but now they dare attack Giants!
Game would need crit tables not to unlike Arms Law.
Hulk smash indeed.
Are you me? I've been working on the same fantasy game for 10+ years, and while I'm getting the gameplay right (in my opinion), it's lacking a certain spark that will make people either love it or hate it.
My hot take, is that fantasy is highly dependent on our culture and what we grew up with. Fairy Tales are very European being tales told by mothers to their daughters based in their locality often to express virtues and morals (it also has the effect to not stray far from home lest the world claim them). Then in 1001 Arabian Nights, the fantasy is all about new things, and the wonders and mysteries of what lies beyond Arabia (while the murderous Sultan stays his hand at killing the woman telling him the stories so that he can listen to her finish the story, before after long, he started to fall for her).
We grew up with those stories and others and are thrilled by them.
It reminds me of the culinary arts and food. People will like to eat what they grew up with and have fond memories of, even if that food by any resonable metric is "bland" or "generic". Present anything new to them, and they'll view it with suspicion, and won't get the same joy out of it like you did when you ate it. I for one like to cook and I've hosted nights where I'd get my family and friends together to try different foods. While they all praised it, they still went back to what they normally ate. It's just not what they're used to, and it doesn't encompass their scope (Though my family has been more comfortable with adding plain greek yogurt and sour cream into soups since I made them Russian food a few times in the past).
My best answer right now is to approach the audience and say, "Hey guys, I got this cool thing relating to what we grew up with! Here's the pitch! I'll run it and let's have a good time!"
Thanks for reading my blog.
If you like elves, orcs, the human average, dark holes in the ground and the extended family of evil zanzibart magnates, then do that! I'm sure you'll find a way to give it your own spin.
And as for Dragon Lords of the Kirin I'd think a lot of the leverage would come from how the dragons work: are they all the same, barring statistics, or are there breeds of them? Do families try to breed unique talents into their dragons? Like, the Zmey Dragonlords' dragons would be bred to spit sticky, liquid fire, while the DaKirin, first of their name's Dragons would have long horns on their forehead to better fight other dragons, and the Drakon Philosopher-kings' would have stunted limbs, akin to giant serprents, but would so venomous even their gaze could kill a man. Maybe even less specific traits, like scales, build and breath capacity. As you told me once, the moment you have the base pieces of the game you just need to expand from there, but the trick is you can do this with the game's setting and story too! Get freaky! Maybe dragon-kings can have some special capabilities while riding their dragon or while fighting along them a la Eragon or some shit, making them vulnerable to court assassin but dangerous on the battlefield!
just add everything into one huge world and it will be unique (malazan)
Me, personally, I'm very partial to the vibes they had in AMID EVIL, the boomer shooter revival game about a multiverse traveling warrior. I just love the feeling it evoked with tis high-concept locations and synthy soundtrack, but, since it was a boom shoot and not, say, a choice-and-consequences CRPG, the plot and the setting are pretty vague. Maybe something can be done with that.
Also, I'd appreciate if anyone could recommend other media that evokes the same kind of feeling, Heretic/Hexen (which, I suppose, inspired AMID EVIL) in my opinion doesn't, really.
Hope you will review my fantasy game some day. Since you even reviwed DarkBad.
Is final fantasy a fantasy?
If it is, what makes it a fantasy?
If it isn't, what makes it 'not' a fantasy?
Is something a fantasy... when the gods are more mortal than they let on?
Is fantasy less about the 'what' and more about the 'how'?
Is fantasy just the 'other' selection when describing something, the catch all for when a setting doesn't fit anywhere else?
... do not pursue Zhouzibart
Yo Notepad, have you ever tried out Heart- The City Beneath?
I have not, people keep telling me about it though. I'll look into it.
@@NotepadAnon I just recently caved and got the rulebook. Haven't actually played it yet, but I love the flavour and the world.