Make mine regular fantasy, with lots of dragons, orcs and dungeons. Hold the Indo-Aztec gobbledigook, furries with lazer beams, and anthropomorphic ducks.

That's what I generally like to play, when I play fantasy games. Now, like my esteemed colleague JRIENTS said, I'm okay when regular fantasy starts to evolve toward the weird, but even that has its limits.

This doesn't mean that I can't objectively appreciate those other mondo-weird-from-the-start settings, but I assure you that they'll never get played at my table.

So, what about the rest of you? With all of this talk about Glorantha, Jorune, Talislanta and Tekumel, is there any room in your lives for good old vanilla fantasy?

I played mainly vanilla fantasy for 20 years, and it's just gotten tiresome. I find it hard to even think up a cool adventure kickoff. Even Iron Gauntlets, which I love, hasn't inspired me until Steampunk Musha. I know it's me, but I just don't get any spark from it any more. It's like a continual feeling of Deja Vu. Maybe this will change, but for the moment, only funkier settings are inspiring me.

-clash

I'm in for strange, not stupid. AFAIAC, real-world myth inspired fantasy of various cultures is great stuff for fantasy, and has long been.

But hold the ducks, please.

While prefer sci-fi over fantasy, I do prefer vanilla fantasy over "weird-shit" one or two twist is fine, much more and you lose me.

Quote from: mattormeg... is there any room in your lives for good old vanilla fantasy?

HELL YES.

Well, vanilla 'with sprinkles', as I like to keep most of the standard fantasy tropes (elves, wizards, dragons, etc.), but 'twist' them in some way (e.g. make the elves secretly evil).

But I pretty much run fantasy exclusively these days.

There are two main reasons for this: (a.) I don't get to play as much as I would like (at best 2-3 times per month; often gaps of 1-2 years between different gaming groups), so fantasy has yet to become 'stale' for me; and (b.) this is my hobby, so I want something easy and comfortable to use when I engage in it (I face enough intellectual challenge in my work; I'm psychologically exhausted by the time I work on my RPGs, so I like the familiar).

"Vanilla Fantasy" hasn't been overdone for me.  It's easy to grasp, takes me no time to prep at this point, and doesn't require giving the players a reading list to "get it" (I have no problem making campaign packets explaining the setting, but I have a suspicion that very few players ever really read them).

And because it's fantasy, I find it's easy to tuck a small pocket of weird in a corner and let the PCs discover new things.  Makes for a nice variation, and if they get sick of it, they can always make their way back to more familiar territory.

For me, it's overdone.  Dwarves, elves, orcs, and dungeons just bore me to tears.  THere's nothing wrong with it, it's just that I did that for like 15 years.  I have indeed been there, and done that.  I want to do something new.

Quote from: flyingmiceI played mainly vanilla fantasy for 20 years, and it's just gotten tiresome. I find it hard to even think up a cool adventure kickoff. Even Iron Gauntlets, which I love, hasn't inspired me until Steampunk Musha. I know it's me, but I just don't get any spark from it any more. It's like a continual feeling of Deja Vu. Maybe this will change, but for the moment, only funkier settings are inspiring me.

-clash

Same here. But than again reading stuff by Gene Wolf is not exactly helping me rediscover my appreciation for trad fanatasy
 

QuoteOriginally posted by mattormeg

So, what about the rest of you? With all of this talk about Glorantha, Jorune, Talislanta and Tekumel, is there any room in your lives for good old vanilla fantasy?

Don't worry man, most of the games you mentioned are long gone. I don't think there are many fans of those games left, check that, even when those games were alive and kicking I don't think they had a large fan base...an extremely passionate and vocal one no doubt, but numbers wise, most folks always prefered the traditional (vanilla) stuff.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RSame here. But than again reading stuff by Gene Wolf is not exactly helping me rediscover my appreciation for trad fanatasy

Ha!

Quote from: David RDon't worry man, most of the games you mentioned are long gone. I don't think there are many fans of those games left, check that, even when those games were alive and kicking I don't think they had a large fan base...an extremely passionate and vocal one no doubt, but numbers wise, most folks always prefered the traditional (vanilla) stuff.

Regards,
David R

Exactly! Vanilla Fantasy outsells any kind of wierd stuff by an enormous margin. Like I said, the problem isn't with Vanilla Fantasy, it's with me. I've just lost my taste for it, and several others here are in the same boat.

-clash

Quote from: mattormegSo, what about the rest of you? With all of this talk about Glorantha, Jorune, Talislanta and Tekumel, is there any room in your lives for good old vanilla fantasy?

I love plain old vanilla fantasy but can appreciate a well done setting that differs: Talislanta, Providence, and Tekumel, I'm not a huge fan of Glorantha (which is odd it seems wierd for wierdness sake, Talislanta by comparison isn't that wierd--it has a consistent logic to why things are the way they are, which I don't get from Glorantha myself.)

Of course I love vanilla fantasy myself: I'm doing it "right"

http://www.silverlionstudios.greyearth.com/HV/

Albeit I think my rules set is "more Indie" than not so it won't be everyones thing. (Mind you the reason for that isn't because I wanted indie--but because I wanted the ability to scale out for epic fights in armies then scale in for the one on one battles between heroes and villains. One minute  a knight is fighting hordes of myrk*, then pauses as across the enemy field a Shriven**, calls him out and they battle towards each other and so the focus is now on them, on blow by blow combat rather than epic decimation. I need playtesters BTW.


High Valor is inspired by Norse/Celtic myth, spun through Carolingean lens, and given a final vanilla stamp cause damnit I like it that way--mind you its INSPIRED, not set in--it has its own setting and history. (And Moons, and constellations, and curse words..)



*myrk: The worlds "goblin" albeit decidedly not cannon-fodder. The first few playtests myrk routinely slaughtered PC's, and still are meant to be a HUGE challenge, especially in numbers even "tweaked" to be a bit less lethal.

**Shriven: an elf, relieved of the burden of a soul.

Quote from: MaddmanFor me, it's overdone.  Dwarves, elves, orcs, and dungeons just bore me to tears.  THere's nothing wrong with it, it's just that I did that for like 15 years.  I have indeed been there, and done that.  I want to do something new.

I like vanilla fantasy, but I want explanations for the tropes.

That's why I really like the game I've been playtesting for a friend of mine.  It's vanilla fantasy, with chocolate syrup, marachino cherries and whipped cream.  

It explains why elves and dwarves don't get along without just assuming there was some conflict 'way back or welding a backstory into place.

It explains why elves love forests and trees, why dwarves love mining and technology and why humans tend to band together to face the outside world.  (It also does a nifty little twist on the relationship between elves and orcs...)

Mind you, the "explanations" are not: "Here's why they don't get along..."  No, it's woven into the basic setting details.  After reading the setting, you'll know why, without having to be given overt specifics.

So, as you have said, I like vanilla fantasy, with reasons and explanations as to the hows and whys instead of just assuming that elves don't get along with dwarves and that they love trees and that there is some kin dof relationship with the orcs (all stolen carte blanche from Tolkien, of course...).

Said it before, sayin' it again -- I like bog-standard FRPG because I have not yet exhausted all of its possibilities.

Vanilla with sprinkles I think summed it up best. Keep the wierd out, I'm wierd enough for any setting.

I tend to play in vanilla fantasy more than anything else.  

Of course, there is the little issue of defining vanilla fantasy. But I'm of the opnion that common sense is the best definition: we all know what is vanilla fantasy when we see it, and we all know what isn't.

RPGPundit

An important thing to keep in mind when discussing vanilla fantasy is how watered down the modern version has become.  Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Arduin had plenty of genre-busting cross-fertilization.  Gary's D&D group visited Barsoom.  Arneson's campaign featured blackpowder weapons.  Arduin is a psychobilly freak-out, to borrow a term from the Reverend Horton Heat.