Quote from: jrientsAn 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.

You are correct! When I say "Vanilla" I mean "Modern Vanilla."

-clash

Yes, that's a good point: these days, Blackmoor, the Wilderlands, or the Known World/Mystara might all be considered "not vanilla", yet to me they define Vanilla as far as D&D is concerned.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditYes, that's a good point: these days, Blackmoor, the Wilderlands, or the Known World/Mystara might all be considered "not vanilla", yet to me they define Vanilla as far as D&D is concerned.

The thing is, they have their exotic elements, but people try to actively strip them out.

Frex, wilderlands explicitly supports psionics. But many WL GMs I have seen discuss their games or solicit online games pronounce there will be no psionic PCs.

And I think that's reasonable. Hear me out here.

The benefit of "vanilla fantasy" from a gameplay standpoint is that it provides a baseline of familiarity for the GM and, especially, the players, so that they can maneuver through the world with a sense that 95% of the time, things will work pretty much intuitively, whether via the rules or through the GM's rulings. Too much weirdness and the players have to constantly check with the GM to make sure whatever they're trying to do makes sense, and they'll feel "at sea" when it comes to understanding the implicit meaning of things they encounter.

Psionics and all that aren't the sort of stuff that people intuitively associate with fantasy. It's okay, but as soon as you include it, you're making a particular type of fantasy and then the question is, is it the baseline for the campaign, or is it something unusual within the campaign that the players don't have to understand at first. If it's the baseline, then you're back to square one: the campaign is too weird except for people who've already internalized all the bells & whistles of D&D fantasy. If it's something that's going to be introduced gradually, then...why include it in the setting? I mean, why not let the GMs do their own wacky customizations?

Basically when you build the weirdness into ostensibly "vanilla fantasy" you're already on the road to GMing for someone else's campaign.

Quote from: Elliot WilenBasically when you build the weirdness into ostensibly "vanilla fantasy" you're already on the road to GMing for someone else's campaign.

So you are, in effect, saying that publishers should only make settings which are the same as everyone else's - the baseline vanilla flavor? Not me. Why would I bother? Why would anyone bother? There's already one basline vanilla setting, and no one is going to compete with it as being "more vanilla!" It defines vanilla. Publishers have to differentiate their settings, and the only way to do that is to become "less vanilla."

-clash

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.

Bingo.

I like fantasy well enough, but I can't stand the traditional races at all. Elves bore and annoy me at the same time; as for gnomes, dwarves and the rest I can't take it seriously anymore.
As for stuff like psionics- bah, also not for me (except for in Traveller... maybe).

but crazy ass elephant gods, or weired dreaming cities with semi-corporeal  flesh eating demigods from the outer dark in the cellar? well, sign me up.

Quote from: flyingmicePublishers have to differentiate their settings, and the only way to do that is to become "less vanilla."

Vanilla is poorly defined so it's causing semantic arguments.  A setting can be vanilla in the sense that it doesn't make any unusual assumptions in physical laws or deal with unusual races (on the flower penis scale of unusual) and still have lots of room to be different.  

In D&D, psionics is a deal killer for probably over half of DMs - it has it's own set of additional rules that have generally not worked well.  In that sense, psionics is never vanilla.

Quote from: mattormegMake mine regular fantasy, with lots of dragons, orcs and dungeons.

Now, you see, if I start leaning in that direction, winnowing out the strangeness, I want to go beyond vanilla.  I want un-flavored.  No non-human races, no fabulous creatures, no dungeons beyond a dank holding cell with a single hidden passage.  I tire of fantasy races and nonsense monsters tacked onto the SCA vision of medieval Europe.  Give me gritty alternate reality.

!i!

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

Agreed completely.  (except tack on another 8 years to that...)

"So you're in a tavern...you're all, uh, sitting around and a guy comes up and offers you a job.."

This is where I would run screaming from a new group...nothing good can come of it, and that's what 'vanilla fantasy' reminds me of.  When i hear it, i think pages of graph-paper mapping out an intricate dungeon with rooms listing encounter, treasure, and possible XP awards, all packed into a Trapper Keeper.

Fantasy reminds me of Anime, in the sense that it all looks the damn same and tends to bore me to tears.  Granted, there are some really choice GM's/DM's/Whatever-fancy-word-you-call-it who can pull it up by the bootstraps and make it into something unique and interesting, but in my experience they are few and far between.

-k

edit - Howdy!  first-time poster.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaNow, you see, if I start leaning in that direction, winnowing out the strangeness, I want to go beyond vanilla.  I want un-flavored.  No non-human races, no fabulous creatures, no dungeons beyond a dank holding cell with a single hidden passage.  I tire of fantasy races and nonsense monsters tacked onto the SCA vision of medieval Europe.  Give me gritty alternate reality.

!i!

I ran a campaign not too long ago where the first "monsters" the party encountered were a lion and troop of baboons. Thre was quite a bit of confusion when the lion turned out to be really formidable.

Quote from: kregmosieredit - Howdy!  first-time poster.

Welcome in, kregmosier! Have fun, and don't poke the curmudgeons! They bite!

-clash

Quote from: kregmosier"So you're in a tavern...you're all, uh, sitting around and a guy comes up and offers you a job.."
.

Ha. This has been officially banned from my group; funny thing is I actually had one playerr grumble because he thought that that is the way things should start every time. I start every new campaign in the middle of stuff an let it go from there.

Quote from: flyingmiceSo you are, in effect, saying that publishers should only make settings which are the same as everyone else's - the baseline vanilla flavor?

I'm having trouble with the way you put it there. Let me rephrase in a way that still might get yer dander up but at least it'll be all me doing it.

If I buy a game for setting, I want the setting to be really different and interesting. Glorantha is interesting (though a bit hodgepodge). I recently decided that Talislanta is wicked cool. I'm trying to scare up a copy of 2nd ed. Jorune.

If I buy a game for vanilla fantasy, I want it to be immediately accessible...and actually, chances are I'm not going to buy it for the setting at all. Rather I want the system so I can use it for my own fantasy/S&S campaign. If a game is basically vanilla fantasy but with a some weird assumptions built into the system, it becomes less useful to me.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that if there's going to be weirdness, I'd rather have it bold and up front, so that's what the game is about, or else I'd like to insert it myself. Otherwise I think you defeat the purpose of vanilla, without gaining much in return. One example that springs to mind is the treatment of goblins in The Shadow of Yesterday. (Link here.) The description is so odd and idiosyncratic--especially the idea that goblin PCs can become human by falling in love--that to me it looks like it either needs to be excised or else it will take over the game, thematically.

Again, I don't buy "vanilla fantasy" for the setting, I buy it for the system. I dunno about anyone else. It just seems to me that many of the "vanilla fantasy" settings I've seen have been attempts to integrate the surface tropes of Tolkien or D&D fantasy and then tweak them in some way. For a packaged setting I'd rather have an approach that doesn't take anything for granted...starting with the enumeration and description of the "standard fantasy races".

Quote from: Elliot WilenI'm having trouble with the way you put it there. Let me rephrase in a way that still might get yer dander up but at least it'll be all me doing it.

If I buy a game for setting, I want the setting to be really different and interesting. Glorantha is interesting (though a bit hodgepodge). I recently decided that Talislanta is wicked cool. I'm trying to scare up a copy of 2nd ed. Jorune.

If I buy a game for vanilla fantasy, I want it to be immediately accessible...and actually, chances are I'm not going to buy it for the setting at all. Rather I want the system so I can use it for my own fantasy/S&S campaign. If a game is basically vanilla fantasy but with a some weird assumptions built into the system, it becomes less useful to me.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that if there's going to be weirdness, I'd rather have it bold and up front, so that's what the game is about, or else I'd like to insert it myself. Otherwise I think you defeat the purpose of vanilla, without gaining much in return. One example that springs to mind is the treatment of goblins in The Shadow of Yesterday. (Link here.) The description is so odd and idiosyncratic--especially the idea that goblin PCs can become human by falling in love--that to me it looks like it either needs to be excised or else it will take over the game, thematically.

Again, I don't buy "vanilla fantasy" for the setting, I buy it for the system. I dunno about anyone else. It just seems to me that many of the "vanilla fantasy" settings I've seen have been attempts to integrate the surface tropes of Tolkien or D&D fantasy and then tweak them in some way. For a packaged setting I'd rather have an approach that doesn't take anything for granted...starting with the enumeration and description of the "standard fantasy races".

i am very much in agreement with this. One of the major problems i had with Earthdawn was that the setting was so entwined in the rules/assumptions That it was difficult to extract the system for homebrew. which is a shame, because i really dug the mechanichs, but jesus- Windlings?

Quote from: Elliot WilenI'm having trouble with the way you put it there. Let me rephrase in a way that still might get yer dander up but at least it'll be all me doing it.

The way you rephrased it seems utterly different from your prior post. It seemed like you were advocating  that all settings should be vanilla, which made no sense to me. Now it does. I mean whatever you like is fine with me, it was the (mistaken) advocation I found startling.

-clash