On unplayability:
The last long campaign I ran was in the game Earthdawn. During the course of the campaign, the characters traveled across a vast monster filled underground sea, pocked with undead infested islands and gargantuan ruined temples. They also scored an airship and traveled over the world's edge to the the moon. Enroute to the moon the encountered a giant sculpted stone head floating in the Aether, they entered the head through a nostril and found an entire world inside. Later they went on to the moon, and had a battle that detroyed it.
All that was playable- enjoyable even, but when it was done so was the game.
I guess my point is that really fantastic settings seem to have the same kind of effect as the "Tolkienesque" save the world type story lines do. In a space game the players and the characters know from the beginning that the universe is infinite- it has room for lots  worlds. you can save the world, and still be a nobody a couple of light years away. I think that one of the conciets of Heroic/epic fantasy is that the world is fairly low tech and small scale. And speaking for myslef i would rather play a  fantasy game involving small scale stuff as opposed to large (for instance pirates of the carribean as opposed to lotr).
I'm not sure I made any kind of point at all here...

Quote from: David RI think a large part of the problem is, that when you have a fantastic setting, there is an urge to justify the fantastic elements in the setting - probably because sci-fi does this - and probably because, these justifications bring order to the chaos that the fantastic is capable of creating.

I think you've hit on part of it right there.  By its very nature, an RPG has to have rules and has to have at least a certain level of explanation for everything.  The DM, at least, has to have a grasp of what's going on, or nothing will make sense.  But the more that everyone knows what's going on, the less fantastic everything becomes.

I have the new World of Darkness book.  Unlike most books, I started reading on page 1 and I'm proceeding from there.  The book started out with fiction to establish the setting from the POV of normal humans.  The setting that I glimpsed through that fiction is mysterious, sinister, and magical.

But then I step back and now what is ACTUALLY going on is that the world is infested with a bunch of vampires who are Cure groupies and Anne Rice fans.  They're as unmysterious, non-sinister, and unmagical as you get.  Once I remembered that, I kind of deflated.  Sure, it'd be easy enough to put in eldritch horrors and REAL monsters, but I still know that Vampire is out there, pouting and angsty...

I think the way to fix things is for the writers of the setting to resist the urge to explain.  Sure, modern things can be explained, and many of the things from the inevitable fallen civilizations can be explained.  But that floating mountain over there?  No one knows why it is floating.  Or why it has suddenly started having rumbling noises from its base...

Quote from: GunhildaI think the way to fix things is for the writers of the setting to resist the urge to explain.  Sure, modern things can be explained, and many of the things from the inevitable fallen civilizations can be explained.  But that floating mountain over there?  No one knows why it is floating.  Or why it has suddenly started having rumbling noises from its base...

Exactly. And strangely this also applies to the way how I run my fantasy games in particular. It's all about "not looking under the hood" or to put it another way , "looking under the hood and finding nothing at all". This way, the players are caught up in the wonderment of it all - and let's be realistic, no amount of explanation can be a satisfactory answer to questions about things fantastic. Sometimes -most times, not having an answer frees your mind to explore all possibilities, which is what I think fantasy is all about.

Which is why I don't have a problem with a sinister fantasy city made of gleaming bone white marble, riddled with veins of blood red runes, which traps unwary travellers with whispers of shelter and peace and every one hundred years consumes it's citizens and rebuild's itself in another distant land.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Acinonyx

I don't see how that detracts from the setting.

I never said it did. I was simply saying that I didn't get my info via Planescape, but by way of the 1e and 3e Manuals of the Planes.

Quote from: AcinonyxIt's not like Planescape ever claimed to have thought up the whole D&D cosmology whole cloth. It built on what came before. Nothing wrong with that.

I never said there was.

Quote from: David RCould it be that one of the reasons that there are not too many truly fantastic settings, is because such settings are difficult to play in?

While your post in general is pretty good, I'll just riff on this question. I don't think such settings are more difficult to play in, unless they're made to be so. It's more of a flavor thing than anything else. My example from Monte Cook's Ptolus in my first post pretty much encapsulates my point - a 3000 foot spire doesn't make the setting unplayable. Neither would a floating city or a stairway up into the clouds or constellations that move of their own volition.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonWhile your post in general is pretty good, I'll just riff on this question. I don't think such settings are more difficult to play in, unless they're made to be so. It's more of a flavor thing than anything else.

Yeah. I think unplayable is an inappropiate word for me to have used. I don't think that any setting is unplayable. I think certain settings are more popular whilst others appeal to a certain crowd. You are right, of course, it's more flavour than anything else. But this is the curious part...

QuoteMy example from Monte Cook's Ptolus in my first post pretty much encapsulates my point - a 3000 foot spire doesn't make the setting unplayable. Neither would a floating city or a stairway up into the clouds or constellations that move of their own volition.

...having read, Monte's design notes and frankly finding myself admiring certain aspects of the setting, I question if settings such as these could really be considered fantastic. I mean, the thing is conventions such 3000 foot spires, floating castles etc seem pretty common in the vast landscapes of fantasy settings homebrews or otherwise.

Let's take for instance settings such as Amber, Nobillis, Everway and if I'm remembering correctly Aria. These settings in scope and perhaps maybe originality seem vastly more fantastic then some of the other fantasy settings out there. By fantastic I mean, there is a touch of "the beyond imagination" to these games.

Now I'm not taking about whether these games are any good - I don't know -but it does seem to me, that they have more "fantastic" ideas within them, then say the average fantasy setting and their sometimes interesting genre twist.

Having said that, the question of how "difficult" these settings are to grasp comes into play. Some of the above settings are perhaps (in my opinion) written in a deliberately obtuse manner - as though clarity some how sacrifices atmosphere -as such many would find them not to their taste.

An interesting "fantastic' setting which I have always liked is the original "Immortals" gold set from D&D. This seems to me the kind of fantastic setting that is so lacking in the traditional high fantasy market. Hell, I never really liked high level play...but this setting and game seems different somehow.

I remember hoping for Dawnforge to be a truly fantastic setting, filled with First Age mystery and magic and being severly dissapointed by it. It just seemed with all it's add ons another generic fantasy setting. But rereading my Immortals boxed set, I glimpse vast vistas of unexplored mystery.

(Also Aos, I think I get what you are trying to say. Perhaps if you clarified your post, I could be sure )

Regards,
David R

let me try again:


When everything is huge, nothing is huge?

I know not everything has to be fantastic in a fantastic setting, but you know, it's hard to send them to kill orcs when they've seen the floating city.

Quote from: AosWhen everything is huge, nothing is huge?

Interesting. The more I think about truly fantastic settings, the more I realize that I have to abandon certain assumptions I have of what constitutes fantasy. And maybe even how I run and play such games.

Regards,
David R

One more thing, along the same lines: magic is mystery. Concealment enhances the mystery, somewhat. Technology (unlocking the way the universe works and creating tools to manipulate it) is revalation, and needs to be seen/perceived to have the right impact.

Even if we don't know how the city floats it's blatent presence removes some of the foggy mystery which should surround magic. I think that this mytery is a huge part of the flavor of fantasy.

Quote from: Aoslet me try again:


When everything is huge, nothing is huge?

But when nothing is huge, everything is small. Even the real world has its wonders that are almost beyond belief - whether it's natural wonders like Everest or the Grand Canyon or Monument Valley, or man-made ones like the Taj Mahal or the Great Pyramids or the Sears Tower. Such things rarely seem to make it into fantasy RPG settings, especially if they take into account the existence of magic.

Quote from: AosI know not everything has to be fantastic in a fantastic setting, but you know, it's hard to send them to kill orcs when they've seen the floating city.

Why? In scifi that kind of thing happens all the time.

Quote from: AosEven if we don't know how the city floats it's blatent presence removes some of the foggy mystery which should surround magic. I think that this mytery is a huge part of the flavor of fantasy.

I can see your point, but it does kind of depend on what kind of fantasy you want to have.

agreed, if I knew how, I'd surround that and every post I make with a big "maybe" tag.

Quote from: AosEven if we don't know how the city floats it's blatent presence removes some of the foggy mystery which should surround magic. I think that this mytery is a huge part of the flavor of fantasy.

I'm not sure I follow this. Why would the presence of a floating city remove any of the mystery? Lightning, clouds, the Moon, the stars, all of these things were seen for centuries by man before science could explain them, and were often accounted "magical" and figured very prominently into myths, legends, and religions. Their blatant presence, as you put it, didn't seem to diminish their ability inspire awe.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonWhy? In scifi that kind of thing happens all the time.

and in superhero games as well...
The short answer to your question is "I don't know, but..."

in the case of the floating city: MAYBE in sci fi the floating city and even the ringworld are like the world's biggest most advanced skyscraper. Cool, possibly magestic, even- but not inherently fantastic, but merely an extrapolation of the everyday out to cosmic proportions.

if I muddy the water's enough with my vaugue blather, will I get banned?:mischief:

Quote from: Aosif I muddy the water's enough with my vaugue blather, will I get banned?:mischief:

Dude, you're not muddying waters that weren't already muddied. Your posts glaringly point out just how odd and contradictory such genre conventions can be. Which is very interesting.