Because nerds aren't very creative.

There are RPGs like that, but they don't nearly as well or get talked about for some reason.

>>16204515
Hasn't it always been like that?

Aztec: Blood on the Sand.
Rokugan.

Because Low-Fantasy can be fun, too. And for some, is more appealing than 'wizards and Magic are > than everything!'

>>16204536
Can you tell me about some of them, so I can read up on them? Truly fantastic books and their ilk are good too.

>>16204539
Both are rehashes of the HISTORY BUT FANTASTIC variety.

>>16204542
Fuck this. Fantasy doesn't even have to involve magic at all. A truly fantastic world does not equals high fantasy, as we have come to know it. Wizards don't have to exist. The sense that they do is another sign of how the genre has stagnated.

Because Zenoclash sold 0.54 copies.

Two things.

In regards to books and other media, the more fantastic does not sell. The more recognizable you make it to the masses, the more likely you are to profit. Notice Song of Ice and Fire. War of Roses, zombies, and bam you're a millionaire.

With games, it's similar, but skewed in favor of making things easy. In order to get your media out there you have to not only dominate the market, but deal with booksellers so they will prioritize your goods rather than everyone elses. Thus, if your goods are devoted to 'standard' fantasy, and you do this, you're essentially making sure all that gets out there is less fantastic.

>>16204555
Compared to what? Sci-Fi? Which has devolved into "The good Guys need a mountain of power-armor that is nigh-invincible, and the bad guys have a loin-cloth (if that)?" "Look how fucking heroic we are, for some arbitrary reason, despite being total canon-sues."

That's most of the current Sci-Fi settings, in a nut-shell.

>>16204606
Still better than 80s Sci-Fi with one lonesome hero shooting ten space-mooks with his lazor and rescuing space-princess from the evil space-sorcerer.

Read anything thats written by China Mieville

It's because when something unbelievable happens, even in a fantasy setting that includes magic, nerds will always point it out that physics/chemistry/guns/swords/evolution/botany/medieval blacksmithing techniques/the human body don't actually work that way in the real world, and they will continue to bitch about the setting endlessly because of it to show how smart they are. The only way around it is to use an earth-like setting with entrenched tropes that nerds won't question. Anime has a lot of the same problems, where the main character always uses a katana and can cut through other swords, and mechs can heal themselves, fly, and shoot laser beams and missiles with no one ever asking about power sources or ammunition storage.

It's the same thing with PnP settings. Everyone has an idea that swords should do more stable damage than axes, and that skeletons take more damage from bludgeoning weapons. D&D set a pretty solid standard for how all the mechanics work. Nowadays, it's almost quaint to look back on old RPGs and literature settings that only have one color of dragon, or where orcs are unwashed pig-faced murderers. A new setting that tried to depart from all that would face resistance. For example, players would still switch to their blunt weapons when fighting skeletons, and everyone would assume there were multiple colors of dragons, and there's always that guy who plays half-orcs like they're noble savages. Long story short, if it wasn't a standard western fantasy setting, it wouldn't take long in the hands of longtime players for it to be houseruled into a standard western fantasy setting.

tl;dr: Established settings are established. No one questions them, and everyone knows how they work. New settings don't have those luxuries, so it's easier to just stick to the old.

>>16204515
I actually was going to skip over this thread but came back because I figure I should add my two cents. Ok Op, you want to know why? Here's why. I created a pretty unique world, based around a different mythology. Whole new gods, a complelty new idea behind dragons. The races were several subsets of elves but not the elves from tolkeen or ad&d. Nope these were born of dragon blood and nature itself. Did all this over a period of a year while I was in vietnam. BTW if you want inspiration, get out of your comfort zone and go traveling. Plus vietnam was so less stressful I could actually write.

Anyway, got all this down, used ad&d rules (yes this was awhile ago). Created new classes and everything. What did my players say? I want to play a human knight, a halfling thief, a dwarf fighter, I don't get the mythology, what culture is it based off of. Why are there no humans, why can't I play a paladin?.... I ended up just putting my crap aside and dm'ing a generic forgotten realms game. Anyhow, my point is that players want what players want. And not all of them want crazy ass bizarre original settings.

>>16204620
Put that lone hero in power armor, replace all instances of 'Lazor Pistol' with 'Semi-Automatic Grenade Launcher', increrase the mook-count by a billion (which he will have no problem with), and you've effectively got 40k.

>>16204629
The issue is mixing the symbology of the universe with that of our world. If you present a sword that looks like a sword, then people will assume it works like a sword in our own world. If you wish to create something truly different, it must also appear to be different.

No anime is more outlandish than, say, the norse sagas. Consistency is important.

>>16204630
Some players are ungrateful fucks, others are just confused by the new and will grow to enjoy it once they go out of their comfort zone.
For what's its worth, I'd love to hear of your work.

>>16204629
>>16204630
Exactly, most people like the familiar stuff.
It's the same reason why I laugh whenever I see people bitching about how "derivative" comics have gotten and how they just rehash the same stories and characters over and over. The reason it's like that is because no one fucking buys stories about new heroes.

>>16204637
When you only talk about Ultramarines, sure.

But it has other factions, other heroes as well.

And it is still a lot less in-your-face than Flash Gordon and the likes.

Because SUPER FANTASTIC fantasy has an incredibly high potential to get very derp very quick. If you base yourself historically you can limit it by following pre-set guidelines.

>>16204630

Do you still have the writing you did for the setting? I really like to read homebrew that's thorough and well-constructed. Also, I've hit a crunch working on my campaign setting, and I'm trying to get at least a framework for an entire planet done so I've got something to go on if a character dimension-doors across the globe.

On another note, why does no one post homebrew on /tg/ anymore?

>>16204686
/tg/ shifted from creator to consumer.

>>16204680
But most settings that base themselves historically get almost everything wrong, and anyone who actually studied history will conclud they are those 'derping'.

Remember when all of us got together and made "island" fantasy, with Tiki-Elves, Jamaican dwarves and surf lizzards?

Those were the days.

<duplicate entry found>
DAMNIT

>>16204686
>On another note, why does no one post homebrew on /tg/ anymore?

You would get baned for posting original content.

I thought Pandora would make a really great fantasy setting, myself; it's alien, beautiful, and has just the right amount of mysticism.

>>16204695
The people who don't actually study history are much more numerous than those who do though and history itself is broad, it's all about the preconceptions.

>>16204654
I have a 200 page handwritten journal with everything in it. It would be a bitch to post it all.

What my DMing experience has thought me has been that most players want that generic fantasy because that is what they know. That's what they expect. Oh and I forgot to add this part. I did pull out the journal not too long ago as my friend wanted me to DM again. I told him I had three realms thought up. Two were my own making and the third was a joke realm I wrote up based on the idea the players I stuck in a poor kingdom named Poedunk. Generic european fantasy that I wrote as a joke, but they did not know that, was the one they picked. Again they wanted to play rangers and a halfling thief and they wanted the generic fantasy realm. The sad part is these are all adult gamers. I would have expected them to jump on the two worlds with a more interesting twist. But no, they wanted poedunk. I wonder how long before they see all the jokes I inserted in the game.

>>16204515

One of the reasons is that really out-there fantasy is hard to do well, while more conventional fantasy is easy. Just slap some magic, demihumans and monsters onto a historical mish-mash setting, draw some maps, and you're done. All the little details are covered by already established conventions, things like food, clothing, weapons, social ranks, etc. If you start from scratch you have to build all these things up yourself, and that's harder than most people imagine, especially if you want it to be consistent and cohesive.

>>16204674
>When you only talk about spess mehreens, sure.
FTFY. All the loyalist chapters have that level of '1 marine throws a punch, and kills millions'.

>But it has other factions, other heroes as well.
No... No it doesn't. 40k emphasizes the idea that "hurr, mehreens r da heroes", and the IG are only there to hold the line long enough for the marines to save the day.

Aside from that, all the 'other factions' are just faceless, stripped down concept ideas, given shit on chips to work with. They pretty much just exist to give a kill-count to the space marines.

>And it is still a lot less in-your-face than Flash Gordon and the likes.
Depends... It's certainly more 'grim-dark', without the shiny flash-gordon stuff. But it's just as much 'in your face', especially here on /tg/.

>>16204718

Sorry to hear about your group. If you've got any basic info on your setting, I'm interested to hear it. If it's way too complicated, though, no worries.

I've actually been wondering the same thing OP, especially after playing Dawn of Worlds with my friends. Sure there is the occasional elf or human, but worlds filled with land krakens, jackal headed philosopher scientists, reverse mermaid trading leagues, and barely sentient floating blocks of stone just beg to be played, but will probably never happen, which is a terrible shame.

>>16204686
Its a lot to post and right now I have my son to watch. If this thread is still around later in the day I will link a new thread with some of the crap I have written. Its all handwritten so its a bit to transfer quickly. But I can give a overview of the history leading up to where the game would be played. That explains a lot of why everything is the way it is.

Check out Nobilis.

>>16204718
Sometimes, you need to work at things. A lot of people naturally stick to what they know, but recall how amazing that the mixture of wonder, excitement, fear, and uncertainty we felt when first entering the realm of the fantastic was.

I suggest you run what you want to run and work with the players to explain the world to them.

Fantasy is sticking to Earth, because truth is cooler than fiction and because myths formed over a hundred generations are cooler than what a single author could think up(probably without realising he's being influenced by what he watched as a kid).
However, if you're sick of the constantly rehashed and unimaginative D&D-esque rubbish, there's plenty of setting to choose from. Even Pathfinder deviates a lot from the standard pseudo-European fantasy. Even Tolkien did, not that a lot of his "fans" pay attention to that.
And then there are settings like Tekumel and Exalted, that don't get nearly enough love(including by their developers - contrast the high production values and attention to detail in Eclipse Phase with the rubbish treatment Exalted gets from WW).

>>16204745
You mean Weeaboo: The Touhouing?

>>16204716

This. Especially given that most people view past time periods out of context or through the paradigm of modern views. As an ancienthistoryfag, I can confirm that it's astonishing how egregiously people/Hollywood misconstrue the period.

>>16204701

Yes, I do remember that. I miss it, too.

>>16204763
I love myths. I read hundreds of them. But I disagree they are inherently better, and am angered that everyone believe they are all that fantasy can be. The possibilities are infinite, and what we are doing is endlessly regurgitating.

Exalted is incredibly cliche, at least as much as D&D, if you know the source material.

All electrons are the same and nobody whines about it. Why can't you enjoy fantasy that is generic and universal so anybody can pick it and enjoy it instantly.?

>>16204765
No, I mean "philosophy nerds: the masturbation" aka second edition.

>>16204780
Why don't you go play football like everyone else instead of engaging in this non-mainstream hobby?

>>16204515
>When did fantasy stop being fantastic?
The 1950's.
Just before Tolkien published and everyone started imitating him.

>>16204783
I am sorry. THird edition retroactively ruined all of Nobilis for me. I can no longer respect the author.

>>16204780
>anybody can pick it and enjoy it instantly
...for a given value of "anybody"

Ughhh... you ask the question, but never think about the answer.

If you use variants of actual history your reader can understand the basic concepts and you can more on to the actual plot of the story. If you create something so alien that the readers aren't going to be able to relate to it quickly you're going to need to give them a full anthropology book explaining the cultures and have them read that first before they'll be able to go back to the plot.

How many of you actually read and sang all the songs in lord of the rings? Or enjoyed reading about that one hill for half a chapter while nothing actually happened? Now imagine and entire book of that, before you can read the original book, that's why!

>>16204780

Not OP here:

I don't have a problem with a degree of 'generic fantasy'-ness, but when everything is some spinoff of Forgotten Realms, it gets a bit depressing. As a DM, it's more satisfying when there's something really new and different to go on.

>>16204778
>The possibilities are infinite

There are infinite ways to connect electric components together, but only few of those produce anything worthwhile. Same with fantasy, you can have anything, but most of these options are worthless as nobody would ever enjoy them.

I thng the current fantasy pretty much wfound the perfect formula and anything else would be less viable form marketing perspective as people woudn't enjoy it.

>>16204794
You can present the world as it goes along, giving multiple readings increased value. Many books did it before.

For a roleplaying game, yes, you'd need to learn the setting to make a fully compatible PC, but how many people here actually fully understand most D&D settings, that have a fuckton of material? even the forgotten realms is so detailed that most PCs created for it are unrealistic for it.

>>16204773
We still make stuff from time to time. There's those guys who are working on that modern-magic thing which I like.

Though sometimes setting threads fall apart. I posted one for feedback a while back, that I was thinking of running a Cthulutech game in, which I thought had some cool ideas and it just got no replies at all.

>>16204813
From the perspective of marketing fantasy is a waste of trees and shelve space. Assuming what exists currently, which holds a very niche appeal in the first place, is as much as fantasy can ever appeal to us is, in my mind, incorrect.

>>16204828
>From the perspective of marketing fantasy is a waste of trees and shelve space.

What about massive marketing success stories like World of Warcraft or Diablo?

I've seen some pretty unique Fantasy genres, released within the last 10 years.

Whether you hate, love, or broke the Exalted system, the setting is beyond a doubt pretty fucking distinct from anything else. It's a bizarro-blend of western/eastern fantasy genres, with none of the usual 'elf,dwarf,orc,ogre,etc'. The fae are soul-sucking bastards, the only thing remotely 'dwarfish' is born from jade deposits, and the gods are a corrupt bureaucratic mess. And that's not saying anything about the Deathlords, Exalted themselves, or Autocthon.

>>16204845
Video games!=other forms of media.

>>16204853
TBH, everything there is also drawn from myth. Just not mainstream, western, myth. The sidereal exalted and the way fate works is the most original aspect.

>>16204515
Man, if you feel like that then your DM sucks.

>>16204819
Not if you want your book to sell well in the current market. Plot and writing style sell books, not new and original world settings. Stories are about people; people living in a world, not about a world with people on it.

Don't get me wrong, I hate the forgotten realms setting, it doesn't make any damn sense whatsoever, and I don't want to read books where I can practically see someone rolling the dice in the background. However if you want a good story you either
A. have to place it in a setting where the reader understands the general concept of what's going on. or
B. Tell it in first person with a character whom also doesn't know what the hell is going on, such as in (the most overrated book ever imho) A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

If your reader is spending the entire book thinking "I don't understand what's happening." they won't finish the book, and with short attention spans and evern shorter ammount of free time, readers generally want plot to be more prominent than anything else. Compare the number of people who've read Lord of the rings and the hobbit compared to the symrallion. (sorry I know I misspelled that but I'm running short on time)

>>16204861
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books#At_least_100_million_copies

I see plenty of fantasy there. It does not dominate these lists, but that doesn't make it non-viable for marketing.

>>16204869
True, there are a lot of mythological concepts there.

But that's still far more unique than most Fantasy genres are known for.


There's also the whole Neverborn, and world-creating concept-monsters that are the yozis. One can tie those in with the greek Titans... But none of the Titans in Greek Mythology were a colossal endless canyon, or the very concept of an ocean.

Fantasy became unimaginative because modern writers dont know shit about writing fantasy.

In a pure fantasy book, fantasy itself become the main character. Modern writers just usually write escapist book about how awesome their main character is (which in turn become a idealized version of hemselves: example: Eragorn) or just want to write on a slightly deviant pseudo-historical tale ( Song of Fire and Ice is a good example, since it is clear that the "oh so deep" story about some fantastical war of the rose is the main focus and not the fantastical element, which could be removed without impacting the story as a whole)

All of these makes for childish and immature writing, and the thing that is the closest to the old "spirit of fantasy" in our day and age are perhaps "science-fiction" tales.

>>16204539
>Aztec: Blood on the Sand.
Fuck the rest of this thread, tell me more.

>>16204884
Stories can focus equally on people and the world just like literature uses people as vehicles for a philosophical statement. I have no doubt these pieces will sell less, but then most people don't read what critics consider the classics either. I try not to confuse with what is popular with what is good.

A book which I think got it right is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helliconia

Fuck this thread. People who read fantasy fiction just because WEIRD CONCEPTS are faggots. Fiction should be about the characters and the plot first and foremost, and characters and plot naturally lend themselves to vaguely fictionalised version of real situations

>fiction that focuses on the story rather than making a fantastic setting is bad fiction

There is no hope left in man.

>>16204895
this, every story are now "generic teenage drama WITH SPARKLING VAMPIRES", IN SPACE variant or "historical setting WITH DORFS AND ELVES" and as a reader you can only think why am I reading this.

>>16204928
What if humanity is the character the book focuses on? What if it is a concept? A what-if?

Fantasy is ultimately a way to enquire as to what makes mankind what it is, by making it face foreign environments and thus new questions as to its identity.

>>16204941
you seem to misunderstand, the thing is that in classic fantasy (Lovecraft, Aasimov etc) the fantasical/science-fiction element was the main focus of the story, not just some kind of plot device that tries to hide an otherwise bland story or character devellopment.

Heavy metal fantasy? that kind?

You know, with skeletons of ancients gods all arround

>>16204941
Instead of focusing on the setting, I find that the most enjoyable fiction that I have read strikes a balance between the two. Lets you know where they are and how the world is, but also manages to keep the story focused on the characters, their exploits, and the exploits of anyone who can affect them, while also giving you not an entirely in depth view of the world, but a broad overview from time to time.

>>16204958
Then that's fine, that's cool. That's interesting. It doesn't invalidate books that don't focus on that kind of shit. "Fantasy" is an arbitary genre label and saying a book is "bad fantasy" just because it isn't about what you want it to be about is poor form.

>>16204928
PREFERENCES.

>>16204984
I never called it bad fantasy. Just less fantastic (more historical). Opinions and all that.

In my opinion, Fantasy is about making you feel like a kid who is seeing the world for the first time.

>>16204926
>>16204941
>>16204947
The question is why is fantasy writing like this and I answered. Authors need to eat, so they are going to write things that are going to sell, and to be entirely honest the opinion of a "critic" isn't worth anything more than a idiot 13 year old girl. You're talking about something as subjective as it gets. Banks accounts however aren't subjective. I'm willing to stand on the argument that Harry Potter and Twilight are very well written books (despite the fact that I could bring myself to read more than a chapter of each) because they've made more of an impact on the last two generations of humanity than many of the so called "masters" of fantasy and Sci Fi, despite that I enjoy Clive Barkers Mr. B. Gone more than harry potter any day.

imo
the more "high powers" you put into a fantasy setting the harder it gets to not fuck up the story or in /tg/ fuck up the game itself..
when the most powerful mage can still only cast a few fireballs or death-touches everything is fairly easy to make fit with each other...
but when the lowliest man can create and destroy matter by pure thought, it gets very tricky VERY fast. for writers the problem is that a single writer can never cover all the loopholes, so someone in the nerd-fanbase will come up with a hundred ways how the heroes could've saved everybody without loosing a single person. in terms of games, it puts people off when they can do one thing but not something else (ex: why can a mage transform someone into a sheep but not into a fucking bear)

that said there are still interesting concepts out there - you just have to look deeper, or create your own.

>>16205014
It is an issue of semantics, then. You define value by popularity. I disagree, vehemently. There is simply no objective meter for quality.

I remember one time when I was younger, I came up this with this fantasy story setting I thought was completely awesome. I didn't heavily base the cultures of the world off any pre-existing ones, and put in whatever crazy shit I liked.

However, others didn't enjoy it as much as I did. When I did some writing for the setting and shared it with some friends, most were just going WTF after they reached the part where the magi-tech elves were riding into battles on giant-spiders and wasp that shoot lightning against the goblin necromancer armed with bolt-action crossbows and their robo-dragons fueled by blood.

People like the familiar. Bizarre, out of this world things just weird people out. Although such things can become enjoyable overtime, few people are willing to give them that time.

>>16205019
More foreign fantasy does not implies high power, but even those exist and I do not think they 'always' have loopholes in them. Take Amber for example.

>>16204928

Of course, plot and character development are more important than the specifics of the setting, but atmosphere and immersion are more important than any of those other traits/concepts. If characters are all shocked to see a convict disemboweled in front of a laughing/cheering crowd, or don't WOLOLOLO every time they see a friend, or tell other characters to fuck themselves and don't get killed for it, that really breaks cohesion in a Medieval-inspired setting.

What's problematic is that virtually every fantasy setting I've seen (bar The Malazan Book of the Fallen) is a shitty knockoff of Tolkien. Elves and dwarves are fine to use as fantasy tropes because it's easy to develop an attachment to them, but when a setting is 'halfway-identical' to Greyhawk, you may as well just use Greyhawk. Not to mention that most fantasy series of that kind don't do immersion well at all.

>>16205033
>When I did some writing for the setting and shared it with some friends, most were just going WTF after they reached the part where the magi-tech elves were riding into battles on giant-spiders and wasp that shoot lightning against the goblin necromancer armed with bolt-action crossbows and their robo-dragons fueled by blood.
That is ten kinds of awesome. Your friends are faggots.

>>16205033
You certainly make a point, but I think your own creation has a distinct issue with it - rather than being new, it is a collage of the existing, and it is often disorienting to see things 'out of place'. You use odd combinations of what is there, so there is more resistance since everyone have preasumptions about what every piece of the collage is.

>>16205033
>magi-tech elves were riding into battles on giant-spiders and wasp that shoot lightning against the goblin necromancer armed with bolt-action crossbows and their robo-dragons fueled by blood

>>16205033

>magi-tech elves were riding into battles on giant-spiders and wasp that shoot lightning against the goblin necromancer armed with bolt-action crossbows and their robo-dragons fueled by blood.

There is no way in Hell you're going to fail to elaborate on that.

>>16205028

I'm making more of an anthropological argument at this point I think, which has digressed from the original topic. My point being that those two "crappy" books we like to complain about so much are having a lager impact on society than our somewhat obscure "indie" authors. With that in mind I don't think its logical to say they are "poorly written" when they've succeeded so fantastically in their goal. Even despite the fact that I find them fairly painful to read, and full of plot holes.

>>16205037
I liked the Amber series.

That was a pretty cool Fantasy setting.

>>16205014
I never said that book that does not conform to my definition of fantasy are bad book or that they should not be read, only that they where not "pure fantasy" book ( and we should not see in the word "pure" a qualitative judgement), its just that in fantasy writing, fantasy is the centerpiece of the story, with other element subordinated to it.

What I simply wanted to say is that most modern "fantasy" books are about some story with the fantasy element strapped in as plot device and subordinated to the story as a whole, which are usually drama of some sort. While It is not my intention to claim that these book are bad (in this regard I completely agree with your point of "who the fuck are you to judge"), I just want to make the point that they cant be classified as pure "fantasy" ( which in turn should be seen as a pedantic nitpick and not a form of elitism)

>>16205057
>>16205059
magi-tech elves were riding into battles on giant-spiders and wasp that shoot lightning against the goblin necromancer armed with bolt-action crossbows and their robo-dragons fueled by blood-mind

I don't see what's so *bad* about historically themed fantasy: a lot of it is shit, sure, but then a lot of everything is shit. Books like Tigana or A Song of Ice and Fire mix the fantastic and the historical wonderfully, and tell brilliant stories: so why does it matter if they're not dressed up like an eight year old's imaginary playtime games?

>>16204515
>Animals we have never imagined?

that's pretty much impossible

every life-form we imagine is some derivative or amalgamation of things we know and understand

>>16205074
There is a difference between one made of two pieces and ten million. Griffins as opposed to the xenobiology-style work.

>>16205072

The trouble with A Song of Ice and Fire is that it's very obviously The War of the Roses And Hadrian's Wall Writ-Large Across All of Europe When The Mongols Invaded.

The setting's so derivative it hurts.

>>16204515
Beause being unique only for sake of being unique isnt a good thing.
Also there alot of bizzare and strange settings. Those just arent that popular. Thats why they are unique, or suddenly there would be like a million settings like that.

Well, I always tell my players that we're not playing Medieval fantasy, we're playing Fantasy.

I let them see any magic, any weapon, any villain, and i don't restrict myself to petty limits like not being anachronistic.

My answer to you op, it's because you're not dming fantasy. If you want something you must dm it yourself.

>>16205135
see
>>16204625

>>16205104
And? If the story is well-told and works with the setting, why does that even matter?

>>16205033

You inspired me to start a Homebrew-Brainstorm thread: >>16205150

>>16205059
Alright, so basically when the world was young there were dragons all over the place. They flew around conquering lesser beings and creating powerful magic devices via slave labour. However they were giant assholes who nobody liked, so the mortal human-like race which they used for most labour rebelled and kill the dragon leaders, by destroying an entire peninsula with magic.

The dragons soon dwindled and began dying out, so the few remaining ones decided to round up a bunch of blood magi and have them bind their blood, organs, souls and minds to these metal bodies so that they could never age. Unfortunately they found out that they needed a shit ton of new blood on an 50 year basis to keep their bodies working. Most were unable to get all necessary blood, and either broke down or were forced to enter a type of stasis.

So then the human-ish race which had become full of magi spread out and began several different races. One large tribe went around killing dragons and drinking their blood, which turned them into elves. They almost gained knowledge of the dragon technology from this and combined it with their magic to get magi-tech.
(Continuing)

>>16205047
>robo-dragons fueled by blood
>Escaflowne reference?
I could never get my friends interested in something like this. They got hooked on the part where the text told them "as criminals of the Empire, you have all done something to shame the kingdom and had the usual sentence of death by executioner commuted to death by old age in the capital's deepest dungeons; however, with the invasion of the Lunatic Horde from another, weirder reality than ours, you have the chance for redemption; find the Dragon Armors of legend in the ruined Old Realm and bring them back in time to save Rosuria and you will be pardoned; should you fail, it is likely that the aberrations besieging our northern border will find you anyways"

but stopped being interested when the seven big towns and a couple main [playable] races (humans, half-breeds, elves/wild elves/ancient elves, goblins, orcs, etc) had a single paragraph description.

>my players assume D&D cosmology (read: everything in the books is always legal despite some it being contradictory or variant rules) as default and refuse to acknowledge any other permutation of fantasy

also, somehow, they expect NPCs to roll over at the slightest request as well as to get EPIC LOOTZ from any moderately difficult encounter

>>16205157
Well the story isn't well told.

It's just easy to read. Like the Da Vinci Code stuff.

>>16205212
>criminals
>tasked with finding powerful artifacts
>the artifacts that could save the nation
>actually trusted to bring them back
I don't see the logic in your plot

>>16205226
I wouldn't say ASOIAF is Da Vinci code tier, at all. I'm not even a massive fan of Martin's books, but saying a hack like Dan Brown is the same as him is just bias.

>>16205157

Because it feels too half-assed. It's one thing to make a setting based on, I don't know, the Sumerians, only if they had lived in Patagonia instead of Iraq and had aggressively monotheistic fundies living south of them. But to make a setting based on the Sumerians, which takes place in a world with two rivers running through it making boundaries for the only fertile soil in the known world, and with turban/headscarf-wearing horse nomads living in the desert, and with an ocean to the south across which is a place with a million-billion gods and people making the best swords in the world is, well, half-assed.

>>16205246
It's writing historically, with enough room to change a few things up. That's not half-assed, it's just another way of writing.

>>16205208
>They also gained
Another tribe was a group of highly aggressive, greedy raiders who lived in a great dark forest. They ate the plants of the forest, drank the water of it's dark rivers and hide from the sun beneath the tress, which gave them goblin-like appearances over the centuries.

So the goblins were pretty big dicks as they went around killing whoever, but they loved their forest home and all things about nature. The elves really hated them, since they believed the goblins to be uncivilized savages. So one day they use their magi-tech to brainwash the giant insects of the forest to serve them and had them kill any goblins they encountered. The goblins retaliate by rallying together attacking the elven cities in force.

But this left the goblin forest undefended, so the elves rushed in and burned it all down with magic-tech flamethrowers and lightning bolts. They then took all the giant insects as their own beasts of labour, as they didn't have horses or any of that shit.
(continuing)

>>16205235
there's a bit more detail to it, I guess
>all the criminals had been poisoned the night before to clear all the guards for combat
>PCs survived somehow
>might be the will of the gods?
>sure, let's give them tokens of credit that also serve as Amulets of Geas to aid them on their perilous journey
>what if the legends are false?
>then, the impossible geas will make them as weak as babies and the wildlife that's overtaken the Old Realm will do them in
>can't we just kill them?
>these assholes?
>good point, bring them in for the briefing now

>>16205236
Maybe that's because you think Martin has solely written Song of Ice and Fire.

The truth is, he has written many things.

And they are all absolute shit.

>>16205287
but really, it's an excuse for Escaflowne-class magimecha RIPPAN AN TEARAN through hordes of psuedonatural creatures to face a demigod from the Far Realm

>>16205315
I'm well aware of everything he's written, thank you. I've said I'm not even really a fan of his, but he is nowhere near as bad as Dan Brown, and neither is ASOIAF automatically "lazy" because it's low fantasy.

>>16205315

I don't mind Martin... but he should fucking do some editing and cutting out of his books. Too much crap, and the story keeps stalling out. Song of Fire and Ice is like the Dragon Ball Z of fantasy series. Spends hours upon hours of time building to something and the book will never get to the damn point or what actually happens.

>>16205282

Bracing for epic; bumping with unrelated but awesome

>>16205282
The goblins who attacked the elven cities got their asses kicked by magic defenses, tech-sorcerers and other shit. They retreated and when they returned home, they found their forest home burned to nothing and countless of their kin dead.

It seemed like the goblin race would die out, all their homes and resources gone. But then after a decade a goblin wizard discovered necromancy. He spread knowledge of the art to all other goblin magi, and they used it to bring back their dead and trees. Although restored to life, the goblins who were brought back could not feel anything or think for themselves, and the trees didn't grow leaves or fruit.

As they could not get the nutrition they required with a dead land, the goblin necromancers cast a spell upon the living goblins. They would be able to survive for a month on a slice of bread and would only need sleep for an hour a day, so they could work more at rebuilding their nation. This side effect of this though is that they became hideous and grotesque overtime.
(continuing)

>>16205104
We are not reading it for the lore, but for seeing who dies/is maimed/is raped.
And food.

... and the parteh was bumpin', bumpin'...

>>16205409
Now the goblin nation is filled with undead and grotesques who labour constantly in a dead land. Naturally the goblins REALLY hate the elves, seeing as how they destroyed their land and blame them for dooming their people to their shitty lives.

After a few centuries or so the Lich, a goblin magi and the only undead to keep it's ability to think on it's own, discovers the metal body of one of the dragons buried under some rubble in a mountain. He starts reading up on his mythology/forbidden lore, and finds a legend about how some blood magi (technically the first necromancers) bound the blood and essence of dragons into metal.

So the Lich, knowing the power of the old dragons and looking to get some vengeance, gets together bands of goblin/undead warriors and launches aggressive raids against nearby settlements and caravans. He has his men to drain the corpses of blood and bring them to the mountain. After he has gathered the blood of ten thousand slain people, he uses it to awaken the metal dragon.

The dragon awakens and the Lich tells him that he too understands what it is like to have one's culture destroyed and forced to live a half-life. He tells the dragon that he wants to seek revenge on the elves who fucked him over, and if the dragon helps he will bring all his kin back with necromancy.

The dragon agrees and joins the Lich and his goblin necromancers. He also teaches them about some of his race's technology, letting them construct things like bolt-action crossbows and medieval-style chainsaws.

The mecha-dragon then leads a force of undead and goblins to attack the elven cities. Although the elves have powerful magi-tech, they have forgotten the old ways of pure magic used to defeated the dragons of old. Their lighting/fire weapons and giant insect war beasts are useless against the dragon and it's nigh indestructible metal body.

Aaand that's about all I came up with by that point.

>>16205682

That's about the bossest non-human-centric setting I've seen in a long time. Do you want suggestions, or is it defunct?

>letting them construct things like bolt-action crossbows and medieval-style chainsaws.

Because popular and easily understood=/=intelligence based revenue.

The fact that we are currently living in an ADHD social setting makes it even LESS likely that people will read those books which lead to good systems and good fantasy and good science fiction. Have you ever asked a middle schooler what they like to read nowadays?

Most of them can't be bothered to read at all. Look at 4e. It's popular, and it's dumbed down to the point of pedantic simplicity for the sake of reducing the need for players or GMs to think. You pay them money, they ddesign everythign to do all the thinking and work for you.

Free time? What's that? The only people with free time are people who are already rich, people who are involved in the buying and selling of illegal stuff, and people who aren't able to get a job and so they're forced to eke a living however they can. Without leisure time, no reading, no imagination, no creation.

It will only get worse.

You want to know why there is such stagnation in the fantasy role-playing genre?

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=339185

The simple answer: Roleplayers are tolkien fetishists and just want to play in standard fantasy settings. They react violently to anything that is even a little outside of this narrow criteria.

>>16205682
someone cap all of this mans awesomeness

>>16205716
>one forum speaks for all the fandom
You're an idiot.

>>16205709
It was defunct, although after writing all of this I'm starting to think it was a lot less derpy of an idea than I originally thought.

I outta start working on it again, although I'd really need to work on the cultures of the races.

>>16205729
That was never the implication of my post. It was just an example of the kind of thought i've seen before. What is your explanation for why fantasy has become so derivative?

>>16205714

This is a good point, but I don't know whether it tells the whole story.

I've seen (and participated in) the same stagnation in homebrew campaign settings, so it's not exclusively an issue of for-profit money-machining. That said, most published campaign settings and 4e were definitely built to cater to an increasingly broad (and consequently unintelligent, uninspired, and inside-the-box) audience.

>>16205734

Make it a supreme honor in goblin culture to be reanimated.

Depending on the route you want to take with respect to alignment/morality, you could make the goblin necromancy non-evil-and-grimdark, but at the same time make the elvish nature-magitech frighteningly inhumane.

>>16205734
1) Why call the elves elves and the goblins goblins? They are different races, are they not? Call them differently
2) The dragon/elven conflict needs more details. As is it is the weak link of the setting.
3) Same for the reason of the elves for attacking inthe first place, as well as how they became so advanced.
I really love the concept for the goblins though. It is very well done.

>Worlds that could never exist on our earth? Cultures that never crossed our minds? Animals we have never imagined?

The short answer: if they never crossed our minds, then of course they'd never be written about.

To more fully answer the question, I don't think it's a matter of laziness, so much as it is a problem of *relatability*. Sure, you can have a incredibly fantastic place, but if people can't figure out what's going on or have an anchor, it's a pointless exercise because there's nothing for the imagination to latch on to.

Related to this, the concepts present in a novel matter much less than the way which they are presented. The "great" fantasy and science fiction authors don't necessarily provide concepts and settings that were completely new. Rather, making a novel "feel fantastic" is less about the content and more about the way in which you unveil the world and the language you use.

Consider Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun: what makes the world fantastic is not any new concepts per se, but rather the limited, first-person perspective we get which cloaks much of the world in mystery.

The perfect antithesis to this would be books by say, Mercedes Lackey, who upon introducing you to a character have a huge infodump about who this people group was and why they matter.

A more modern example is George R.R. Martin. We receive hints about fantastic, far off lands and ancient history that get the imagination racing. Great fantasy authors know how to withhold imagination and let the reader fill in the world for them.

The anchor tends to be humanity.

>There's something terribly weird about the standard fantasy setting, not least of which that 'Standard Fantasy Setting' can be uttered completely without irony.

>>16205839
That's an amazing line. Where is it from?

"There's something terribly weird about the standard fantasy setting, not least of which that 'Standard Fantasy Setting' can be uttered completely without irony. Look at us; we're a civilization so steeped in escapism that we've managed to find mundanity in something that doesn't exist and never will (no matter what your Otherkin friend might say). Why is it accepted fact that Elves fire bows and arrows and commune with trees? That was Tolkien's thing; without him, elves would just about be qualified to sell Rice Krispies. And he made Dwarves wear braided beards and wield battle-axes. Real dwarves don't do that, they get hired by Lucasfilm or take corporate office jobs because they're an equal-opportunity bonanza. Are we all but children, playing eternally on the same swingset while JRR is the grumpy dad watching from the park bench and trying not to get aroused?"
— Yahtzee in his review of Dragon Age: Origins.

>>16205734
Are the goblins and elves the only races or are there others? Also are there humans?

So I'm reading through this thread and thinking about my own setting that I'd like to do something with (book, D&D campaign, whatever), but I don't know if it's any good or not.
I don't have the time right now to type it up, but could I post it and get feedback later? Or is that not /tg/ enough?

>>16205883
There are others races, although they don't play a central role in the story and are only briefly elaborated on. There's a race of troll-like people that forbid magic and have a culture based around "the Way of Iron", a small race of blood magi creature-like beings that lurk deep in the mountains, and a race a demon elemental based around water and earth who are even older than the dragons and live far away from others.

And yes I was thinking of having humans. However, I thought to have them be considered and extremely exotic and mysterious race who few know anything about.

I blame Tolkien.

>>16205982
Why?
Shouldn't you blame the imitators?

>>16204515

The only fantasy novels I can stand to read nowadays is ancient pulpy stuff like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Black Company, or stuff written for kids, like the Edge Chronicles and Mortal Engines.

"Mature" fantasy fiction like Malazan or Ice and Fire is so damn boring. If I wanted to read about politics and military campaigns and non-stop rape and genocide on every page, I'd read a history book.

The worst thing of all is when magic is included in an otherwise realistic setting just for the sake of convenience. It's like the author wants to have a medieval setting because swords and castles are cool, but they want the convenience of having rapid travel and long-distance communication, so that's what magic is for.

I stopped reading the first Malazan book right about the time that the protagonist gets completely lost, and a wizard comes and opens a portal for him that lets him travel hundreds of miles in a few hours. What the fuck. Some of the laziest damn writing I've ever seen.

Say what you will about LOTR, but at least Gandalf didn't just open a fucking magic portal to Mt Doom.

(and yes I know the Malazan books get better later but I don't care)

>>16204630
Pretty similar happened to me. I created original races, unique geography and pantheons, and etc, and all they could say was "Can I still be a half-orc?" and "Where's the dwarves?"

Most people don't want original, they want the familiar.

Because most people can't be bizarre, unique settings that aren't 90% shit.

Cliches sell.

>>16205682
Those are the most fucking awesome goblins ever

Personally, I feel that society itself has grown to be like this. People no longer want to go search the unknown, to discover and change. They just want to sit back and enjoy the labors of those before them. After all, they earned them, didn't they?

>>16206477
In America, the rich and the powerful are trying as hard as they can to stomp out creativity and intellectual pursuit. The few exceptions are considered a joke and aren't even taken seriously enough to merit much more than a comment or two in the news as they try and undermine the ideals of the rich and powerful.

Intelligence and creativity are only allowed if it can be exploited by someone rich and powerful - otherwise, it's stifled as quickly and brutally as possible, because such things are where revolutions begin.

>Why is fantasy sticking so damn closely to this earth, especially in roleplaying games?
Because it's a HELL of a lot easier to roleplay as a human-with-a-different-suit or cliche fantasy race, than an eight-legged sentient bear-ogre psychic.

>>16206520
Glen.... Is that you Mr. Glen Beck? I would have never thought to see you here on 4 chan... in hindsight I can't say I should be all that surprised though. It does make a certain amount of sense.

Also which water is it that I shouldn't be drinking that the gubbamint is putting the chemicals in? Is it the tap water or the bottled? or is it both and I should just purify my own piss?

There's plenty of original fantasy, it just doesn't sell as well as the generic stuff. People have already mentioned China Meville, so I'm going to pimp my other favorite writer, Brandon Sanderson.

>>16206520
>my face when revolutions begin from someone making an extravagant fantasy setting

>>16206551
You can purify tapwater just fine.

As far as
>>16206520
goes, it's pretty reasonable despite the paranoid mindset. No one has time for such things, and the way literature is popularized now makes "new and interesting" difficult to sell. I looked into it - you have to put money for your book up front unless you're a published author, go totally electronic (no chance of seeing any return on that unless you write fetishy supernatural romance), or you're already published.

Formulaic stupidity sells. Cutting edge does not.

I know that feel, OP.

So instead of making a homebrew setting that was a clone of every other setting out there, I decided to make it as weird as I could. The elves are based on the Cthulhu mythos and get high off of stolen souls. The human winged hussars ride into battle on velociraptors and speak in outrageous Scottish accents. The dwarves are Jewish foresters who practice Bushido, and the halflings have been replaced by a race of Yiddish cat inventors that live in a derelict spaceship floating a mile in the sky. The trolls and kobolds speak in Cockney rhyming slang and have yet to master fire, even though they're capable of building mechanical spiders powered by hamsters and the magical power of belief.

Why?

Because my players want to have fun, and goddammit I'm going to give it to them.

>Fantastic fantasy thread
>ctrl-f "Jack Vvance"
>ctrl-f "Roger Zelazny"

/tg/, I am mildly disappointed in you. Speaking as a DM, I've found a lot of inspiration in books like Amber, Jack of Shadows, and Songs of the Dying Earth. Hell, everything Jack Vance wrote is a study in world-building.

Bumping this.

>>16206690
At least someone mentioned Tekumel. I thought I'd have to rage too.