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The fantasy market seems to be dominated by a very specific trend. All the most popular settings follow the same pattern: a clone of Middle Earth with a garnish of Cthulhu, Conan and Elric. Uniquely, the magic system allows wizards and clerics to trivially solve the problems of daily living and redefine warfare, eventually becoming reality warping gods among men, yet the world around them remains stuck in a medieval rut.

Settings that don't follow this trend generally don't prosper. Original settings like Spelljammer, Planescape and Eberron are limited to cult followings.

Why is the fantasy market so stagnant?

I would say for several reasons:

1. Many gamers are at least familiar with the Lord of the Rings, from either the books themselves or the films.
2. D&D (and now Pathfinder) being the most popular/first/most known in the mainstream, with its heavy "medieval fantasy w/ dash of 'murrican-isms".
3. Many (most?) gamers born after 1985 will have little to no exposure to non or pre Tolkien-esque fantasy literature (George McDonald, Lord Dunsany, Howard, Burroughs, Vance, et. al.)
4. The original gamers created their games and game worlds from the influences of what they'd read (see #3). Modern gamers frankly have no "Appendix N" of fantasy literature to get ideas from that would strongly influence them to create/play anything other than Tolkein-esque fantasy.

Put those together, add a dash of profit-motive-based game publishers and an only recently-available market for low-price, low-volume indy books, and it's not too hard to see why we're here.

Not that here is a bad place, actually.  I think the medieval fantasy is a great sandbox to play in!

Pretty much what Aaron said.

There's also the issue of "getting into" the game, rather important with half a dozen easy choices (and dozens more if we consider all possibilities).

To get people to play your game, you want them to be able to start playing easily. This is why, for example, a game set on Tekumel (see other thread) just isn't going to fly...the only way a player could appreciate the game is to first read a minimum 50 pages of backstory, just to have a crude idea of how the world is set up.

On the other hand "It's a fantasy world with elves, dwarves, halflings, and orcs" tells the player right away that he's going to have a good idea about the world...so now you can get on with explain how your game works.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;918801The fantasy market seems to be dominated by a very specific trend. All the most popular settings follow the same pattern: a clone of Middle Earth with a garnish of Cthulhu, Conan and Elric.

Because writers from the 80s to 90s probably played Dungeons and Dragons and are bringing what they love to text. Those after will have perhaps played World of Warcraft.

People are resistant to change.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;918801The fantasy market seems to be dominated by a very specific trend. All the most popular settings follow the same pattern: a clone of Middle Earth with a garnish of Cthulhu, Conan and Elric. Uniquely, the magic system allows wizards and clerics to trivially solve the problems of daily living and redefine warfare, eventually becoming reality warping gods among men, yet the world around them remains stuck in a medieval rut.

Settings that don't follow this trend generally don't prosper. Original settings like Spelljammer, Planescape and Eberron are limited to cult followings.

Why is the fantasy market so stagnant?

1) Because when Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created Dungeon & Dragon they not only created a new type of game in the process, they are a rare example of designers getting it right with first product. Sometime something new is pioneered but it is somebody later who turns into something iconic or widespread. For example Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile but he was the one responsible for being the first to put everything to create modern automobile industry. Before Ford, cars were treated and more importantly made as luxury items.

2) D&D was first and got it right for three main reason, playing characters in a pretend setting in a way that was challenging and not wish fulfillment, it had enough of a dose of Tolkein to feed into the widespread popularity of Lord of the Ring, and the support for campaigns focused on mazes with room filled monsters and treasure i.e. the dungeon.

The dungeon is what sealed the deal in my opinion. While D&D campaign from the get go were about more than exploring dungeon, the format of the dungeon was perfect entry point for somebody struggling to understand what this novel game was about.

Literally the instruction are that simple.
1) Draw a maze with rooms on a piece of graph paper.
2) Fill the rooms with monster and treasure leaving a few empty.
3) Place the PCs at the entrance.
4) Start the session.

Useful tools to support the above can be written in a few pages and you can immediately see what they are good for.

The game that did this, D&D, also had a particular potpourri of fantasy. So when people wanted to do this in other media, like computer games, the D&D vision of fantasy is what got ported over the most. Concurrent with this it spread into books. But it really hit popular culture like a sledgehammer when computer games got popular. Then went crazy in the early 2000s with games like World of Warcraft and the graphic intensive CRPGs.

Quote from: estar;918811The dungeon is what sealed the deal in my opinion. While D&D campaign from the get go were about more than exploring dungeon, the format of the dungeon was perfect entry point for somebody struggling to understand what this novel game was about.

Literally the instruction are that simple.
1) Draw a maze with rooms on a piece of graph paper.
2) Fill the rooms with monster and treasure leaving a few empty.
3) Place the PCs at the entrance.
4) Start the session.

Useful tools to support the above can be written in a few pages and you can immediately see what they are good for.

Not much to add to that, I strongly agree.

A couple reasons. First: I misread your question as being about the fantasy novel market instead of fantasy RPGs, but therein lies one explanation: fantasy wasn't really a separate genre until Tolkien had his runaway hit and there was a rush to fill the new demand with reprints of everything that could be found plus knockoffs of the Lord of the Rings. That's what was around when D&D was created, and D&D is the Tolkien of RPGs, only more so.

And what you are calling "Tolkienesque fantasy" isn't really much like Tolkien, it's D&D. That's not a criticism of you, but rather the second reason this genre dominates. The only thing Tolkien-ish about it is the fantasy races. That's what D&D did: it took a popular conception of "days of yore" familiar through fairy tales (a hodgepodge of medieval, renaissance, and baroque material, minus the guns) and added the most recognizable feature of the most popular fantasy novels of the time: Tolkien's elves, dwarves, hobbits, and orcs, the Moorcock/Anderson/Simak cosmic battle between Law and Chaos, magic from Vance and Lieber. There's little to no attempt to make it a consistent setting. That's left up to individual GMs. Because it has an easily recognizable base setting (fairy tale Europe,) it's easy to grasp and easy to customize.

And not just for gamers. The follow-up to the Tolkien knock-offs in literary fantasy were the D&D fanfic novels, and eventually video games. They were all copying D&D, or later copying the copies of D&D. These days, there are a couple other popular fantasy literature subgenres, such as urban fantasy and what I call "incompetent hero fantasy" (knockoffs of Another Fine Myth,) and experiments with non-European materials, but even these are practically just "D&D, but in a modern setting/Victorian era/the 1920s/fairy tale Europe with some non-European elements." And then newer, younger gamers play in settings like these, grow up, write their own D&D-ish fantasy novels, and the cycle repeats.

Finally, there's the distinction between broad vs. narrow. The basic D&D setting is broad. Each specific setting, RPG or literary, is built on that, then narrowed down to focus on something of specific interest to the designer or author. Some want to fix what they see as the flaws of the broad setting: more limited magic, or ditching the cosmic battle, or booting Tolkien's races. Some want to add a couple of their own ideas, or do a mashup with another genre. But a broad setting has broad popularity, while narrowing the focus also narrows the audience. If you do "D&D, but with low magic and widespread use of robots", people who want high magic or who aren't interested in robots are going to opt out. Your setting is going to necessarily be less popular than the generic setting designed to appeal to as many people as possible.

I could go on, but any other points I make would basically just be further ramifications of "it's the broadest, most widely copied and widely recognized type of setting".

"Dominate the market" is a business term. When someone who wants to create something in the fantasy genre and convince a commercial publisher to invest in it, which is the "market dominant" sort of activity, those publishers have tend to have limited attention, filters and preferences, and a lot of risk-aversion, so there is much weight given to repeating the same types of things.

Quote from: talysman;918816Finally, there's the distinction between broad vs. narrow. The basic D&D setting is broad. Each specific setting, RPG or literary, is built on that, then narrowed down to focus on something of specific interest to the designer or author. Some want to fix what they see as the flaws of the broad setting: more limited magic, or ditching the cosmic battle, or booting Tolkien's races. Some want to add a couple of their own ideas, or do a mashup with another genre. But a broad setting has broad popularity, while narrowing the focus also narrows the audience. If you do "D&D, but with low magic and widespread use of robots", people who want high magic or who aren't interested in robots are going to opt out. Your setting is going to necessarily be less popular than the generic setting designed to appeal to as many people as possible.

This right here is the thing that haunts me.

D&D sometimes feels like a straight-jacket, but I don't dare slip it off or modify it too much because I risk losing one or more players. The reality-altering powers of casters infuriate me, the way higher levels turn into superhero comics baffles me, the need for 6-8 encounters to balance the PC abilities frustrates me, and the Tolkien races bore me... but that's what everyone's comfortable with, that's the compromise that brings everyone to the table in one big jolly beer-fueled good time.

And when new people come around asking to try roleplaying for the first time, D&D is what they ask for. That's the only game they've heard of, the cultural legend that keeps getting referenced... *groan*... Who am I to disappoint them?

I sympathize, but also partially reject the premise. There has definitely been PC power inflation tied with setting erosion. The world's corehent restrictions are balked at endlessly (and were before, too) yet nowadays there has been vastly more PC design freedom than I remember. Similarly, since character restrictions are so "unpopular," setting too has received the dictum of "anything goes."

And when "anything goes," eventually you need to be more and more ostentacious to be seen. And thus "anything goes" turns into "nothing really went." It's power fantasy improv with a cast of divas.

I don't remember it being this socially ingrained. Like, people are overwhelmed by the least little "No." And yet there are so many new bloods who are so excited to play and try something more liberating than the rank familiarity of movies and video games. The best I can guess is "thus bore the fruits of media training," even as they rebel the conditioning resists...

I am guessing a generation of passive media consumption and structured organized play (play dates and helicopt3r parents) has caused a rift in shared communal expectations. DIY seems wonderfully new and exotic to the youth, and what we oldies take for granted (unstructured creative play, and the socialization that comes from that) might actually be novel to them.

Ack, typing from phone, cannae take no more! Me thumbs!

A friend of mine is an organizational psych consultant (think Meyers-Briggs, but it's far from the only typology).

One of the most useful things he ever told me was the breakdown of certain types of personalities in the general population: about 50% of people fall into a type that wants things to stay the same.  They dislike change and want the familiar over and over again.  This explains most mass media.

Quote from: daniel_ream;918835They dislike change and want the familiar over and over again.  This explains most mass media.

I'm tempted to agree with this... given the number of people I know who just flat out refuse to try new things... new food, new movies (including old movies they've never seen before), new places, new people.

But I'm also skeptical that those personality types are as stable and consistent as folks like to think. People place value on different aspects of their life and the things they do. So it kind of matters why someone is playing games and what they get out of them.
If they're just doing it to relax then it's not surprising they don't want anything that challenges them.
For a lot of the people I've played with RPGs are a very minor part of their life. They don't hang out online talking about them or read up on what new and great 'innovations' are hot on the market. They play as a casual thing to do on a Saturday afternoon, as an escape from other pressures, and they're not looking to be 'blown away' by some new hotness. That doesn't mean they are stuck in a rut in all aspects of their lives... they might be very adventurous in other ways... but games are just not where that zen for the new expresses itself.

The familiar is comfortable and if games aren't all that important to you why would you seek out the less comfortable corners it has to offer?

None of that explains why settings which expanded generic fantasy were not successful.

Eberron is D&D with steampunk and pulp added.
Planescape is D&D with infinite planes of wonder and horror added.
Spelljammer is D&D in space.

Within the straightjacket, how popular are activities other than playing a band of murder hobos? Does anyone bother with politics, sailing, or anything else?

I see game systems something akin to the difference between playing an Xbox vs a Wii vs a Playstation. Some players pick one and dislike the others, some will play on all of them. Campaigns are akin to an individual game disk. Each game system requires an investment in time and money. Some players pick one system and stick with it due to limited resources.

Of course chronologically that's reversed, but it's a difficult comparison to make in reverse.

As far as Tolkenesque fantasy, it's like Super Mario Brothers, or Halo. When someone has played one of these series of games and enjoyed them, they are very likely to pick up and play another. Again, investment in earlier iterations of a series make it easier to invest further in that series.

There's an investment cost to branching off. There's a bigger investment cost to doing something new. If you already knew about Tolkien, D&D is easier to imagine because the books lower your investment cost to pick up the game.

Interestingly, Star Wars has a pretty big footprint in RPGs. I ascribe that to the movies giving people a start in the world and lowering the investment of playing the games. d6 was a really good starter because it was simple and made Star Wars games easy to pick up.

Star Trek and Dr. Who traditionally haven't done as well and I think it's because the games either started off too complicated (for brand new players) or (and?) they didn't deliver the kind of story in the media of the proper feel. I think these media franchises need a very different system than traditional combat centric games and need to make weird puzzles easy for the GM to make and interpersonal interactions instinctive.

There are some interesting exceptions. Cyberpunk didn't have a big tie to it's media inspiration (Blade Runner). Never the less, it's culture fit into the perception of punk culture at the time and so people had something to hold onto.

Shadowrun probably couldn't have launched into popularity if Cyberpunk 2013 hadn't come a year before it. Again the investment to pick up the game was lowered by being familiar with Cyberpunk and D&D. Although the game is well known among RPG enthusiasts, most people would know nothing about it unless they played one of the video games but by just saying Cyberpunk and D&D, they'd have a pretty good idea of what it's about (as long as they knew what cyberpunk means).

So in short, a game is likely to be successful if it's story already has a purchase in the public conscious because it lowers the difficulty of playing to a manageable level. Being too different is a good way of never seeing play at a table because it requires a large investment of time, imagination and money.

I would agree that D&D dominates the market.  But D&D really isn't Tolkien.  

D&D is a western with elfs.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;918801The fantasy market seems to be dominated by a very specific trend. All the most popular settings follow the same pattern: a clone of Middle Earth with a garnish of Cthulhu, Conan and Elric. Uniquely, the magic system allows wizards and clerics to trivially solve the problems of daily living and redefine warfare, eventually becoming reality warping gods among men, yet the world around them remains stuck in a medieval rut.

Settings that don't follow this trend generally don't prosper. Original settings like Spelljammer, Planescape and Eberron are limited to cult followings.

Why is the fantasy market so stagnant?

There are many reasons; and this is one of those questions that one answer won't really cut it.  Though I am on the side of those that say D&D isn't that much Tolkien.  

But as to the specific second part of the question...I am a huge believer in setting/system match.  And Whilst I don't play D&D right now, I believe the reason that that version of the game has done so well is that the system was written to support that setting and game specifically, and the implicit game has changed to match the rules as the various versions have come out.  Spelljammer, Planescape and Eberron are not what the system was built to do, and the disconnect shows in the popularity.

Really, Tolkien's values and themes aren't well represented in rpgs.  Show me a game where the broken class is Gardener.

Quote from: David Johansen;918914Show me a game where the broken class is Gardener.

I find your ideas interesting and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

You win the thread, you magnificent bastard.

Quote from: David Johansen;918914Really, Tolkien's values and themes aren't well represented in rpgs.  Show me a game where the broken class is Gardener.

Well... that character doesn't do much gardening once the story starts does he? DCC pretty much has that with it's funnel-level backgrounds... but then the PC is thrust into adventure and if he survives... no more butcher/baker/candlestick maker.

Quote from: Headless;918882I would agree that D&D dominates the market.  But D&D really isn't Tolkien.  

D&D is a western with elfs.

Love that line...


Narrow fields can gain momentum, but they have to continually cycle source material to do so:

Vampire had to modify because of a stagnant world, and had to change the power structure over time to attract players.  I tried the Masquerade setting but distasted the Story Game.  We modified it to be more RPG and it worked, but the world was so narrow it felt broken.  Dark Age didn't help matters, just looked like D&D was embraced (pardon the pun).  

Other Games like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Dr. Who play to their respective followers, not the masses.

Tolkien style is universal in its Romantic nature, and plays to our darkest fears / greatest wishes.  It is limitless in material, flexible for its audience, and is more comforting (like the books read to us as children) in our memories.  I don't feel the genre hold is a statement against change, but more like good comfort food anyone can enjoy.  (except my wife, but no one is perfect)

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;918870None of that explains why settings which expanded generic fantasy were not successful.

Eberron is D&D with steampunk and pulp added.
Planescape is D&D with infinite planes of wonder and horror added.
Spelljammer is D&D in space.

Within the straightjacket, how popular are activities other than playing a band of murder hobos? Does anyone bother with politics, sailing, or anything else?

Actually, a LOT of that explains why settings which expanded generic fantasy were not successful. What other people said, and what I said. But especially this part:

Quote from: talysman;918816Finally, there's the distinction between broad vs. narrow. The basic D&D setting is broad. Each specific setting, RPG or literary, is built on that, then narrowed down to focus on something of specific interest to the designer or author.

Or how about this from someone else:

Quote from: rway218;918918Other Games like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Dr. Who play to their respective followers, not the masses.

Settings like Eberron, Planescape, and Spelljammer didn't expand generic fantasy. They are non-generic examples of fantasy settings. They are specific settings that appeal to specific groups. And really, why do you think they weren't successful? Because not everyone likes them? They still have their dedicated fans. So what if other people aren't fans?

Think of it this way: if you said "Why do people like food, but jalapeno burgers and deep-fried Twinkies aren't successful?" My answer, and probably the answer anyone else would give, is "But those foods are successful. They just aren't universally loved." Some people don't like spicy foods, or don't eat meat, so they won't eat jalapeno burgers. Some people don't like fatty or greasy foods, so they won't eat deep-fried Twinkies. The fact that way more people eat generic bread than either of those foods doesn't mean that those foods aren't successful. They just aren't generic.

Quote from: talysman;918927The fact that way more people eat generic bread than either of those foods doesn't mean that those foods aren't successful. They just aren't generic.

respect...

... but gluten. :(

Quote from: Headless;918882I would agree that D&D dominates the market.  But D&D really isn't Tolkien.  

D&D is a western with elfs.

Came here to post this. Or something a lot like it, only less concise.

Lord of the Rings, with over 150 million copies sold, is one of the two bestselling books of the 20th century.

And this "D&D is not Tolkien" nonsense is minutia wankery of the "inner circle." To the vast majority of people, "Lord of the Rings has elves, Dungeons and Dragons has elves, World of Warcraft has elves, therefore LotR = D&D = WoW." People who differentiate D&D from Tolkien are statistically insignificant.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;918870None of that explains why settings which expanded generic fantasy were not successful.

Eberron is D&D with steampunk and pulp added.
Planescape is D&D with infinite planes of wonder and horror added.
Spelljammer is D&D in space.

Within the straightjacket, how popular are activities other than playing a band of murder hobos? Does anyone bother with politics, sailing, or anything else?

No, because the vast majority of people are fucking lazy and pants-shittingly stupid, hence "reality television." This and other forums like it are a tiny fraction of a percentage of the consuming public.  We are not typical.  See "confirmation bias."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;918801Why is the fantasy market so stagnant?

It's not. Tolkienesque is only "stagnant" if a gamer lacks the imagination to explore it creatively.

But to answer the thread title, the reason why "Tolkienesque" fantasy (by which I'm going to assume you mean pseudo-medieval) is more popular than other more obscure sub-genres is that 1) its easily accessible for new players dealing with archetypes everyone in Western culture is familiar with from media, fairy tales, and videogames, 2) its the default implied setting of D&D, which remains synonymous with roleplaying in the public mind, and 3) it taps into our cultural heritage in the same manner as everything from Disney princess films to tales of King Arthur.

Quote from: rway218;918918Other Games like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Dr. Who play to their respective followers, not the masses.

Tolkien style is universal in its Romantic nature, and plays to our darkest fears / greatest wishes.  It is limitless in material, flexible for its audience, and is more comforting (like the books read to us as children) in our memories.  I don't feel the genre hold is a statement against change, but more like good comfort food anyone can enjoy.  (except my wife, but no one is perfect)

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with this one. I'm sure it feels that way to a D&D player because you've heavily invested in the world.

In my view, D&D has it's following and is the predominant RPG not because you can do a lot with it. It's dominant because you can do so very little with it and it still is D&D.

I'm not saying you can't have a deep and immersive world in D&D. I'm saying you don't have to have a deep and immersive world and it can still feel like D&D. A tiny and restrictive world of a dungeon is enough for you to start with and still feel you're getting the full D&D experience.

Now now, I know that everyone here has done fantastic and wonderful things with the D&D universe. But when you're ten years old, the universe of Star Trek is a little outside your reach to recreate. Not that you can't like it, just that if I ask a ten year old to write Star Trek fanfic, it's not going to sound at all like Star Trek. If I ask a ten year old to make a maze with monsters in it, he'll do that in no time flat.

If I ask a 10 year old player to be a character in Star Trek, he'll fail to capture the feel of a Trek story. He'll probably go around shooting people with phasers.

If I ask a 10 year old player to be a barbarian in a maze and to kill the evil monsters and take the treasure, he'll do that perfectly, as long as his buddies don't kill him for his stuff.

I'm strongly convinced that it's the dirt simple nature of the starting game of D&D that makes it possible for 10 year olds and adults to pick up the game. We as expert gamers expand the world into greater and greater circles of complexity.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;918941Lord of the Rings, with over 150 million copies sold, is one of the two bestselling books of the 20th century.

And this "D&D is not Tolkien" nonsense is minutia wankery of the "inner circle." To the vast majority of people, "Lord of the Rings has elves, Dungeons and Dragons has elves, World of Warcraft has elves, therefore LotR = D&D = WoW." People who differentiate D&D from Tolkien are statistically insignificant.

Was there someone who said that D&D isn't Tolkien? I know I said that what the OP defines as "Tolkienesque" has very little Tolkien in it. It has the fantasy races. It has the evil races, often being lead by supernatural big bads. So sure, from the perception of the general public, Tolkien = D&D. But that's not the question being asked, is it? It's "why hasn't anything else become as popular?"

I'd say the fact that D&D only borrowed superficial details like races is part of the reason why it succeeds. It's got something eminently recognizable, and can be used to do "Middle Earth", but it's not Middle Earth by default. It's lacking some of the specific details necessary for Tolkien's literary goals, but which would be detrimental if someone didn't want to play in Middle Earth. It's a kitchen sink setting, a hodge-podge of everything imaginable, without committing to one author's ideals. It can be molded to fit many different preferences, as opposed to a specific fantasy setting that has already made some decisions for you.

You guys are way too hard on the genre.

I've played RPGs for about 35 years. With hundreds of people of every education level and social background imaginable.

The "Dungeon fantasy" genre, with it's primal brew of fairy tale and western tropes, is accessible to just about everyone in the Western world. And big chunks of the Eastern world. Even people who don't read fantasy novels or who aren't otherwise "Geek culture" fans can get into it, if only for a few hours each week. It's popular because it's simple, most people at like it at least a little bit, it's enough of a blank slate for players and DMs to "Season to taste" with bits of other stuff they like (i.e. Ravenloft = D&D +60's Hammer Horror, Eberron = D&D + a dash of Steampunk + a pinch of WWI, Lamentations of the Flame Princess = D&D + 70's arty Euro-Horror  grindhouse sleaze, Dungeon Crawl Classics = D&D + Smoking pot in your crazy uncle's dank basement full of Planet of the Apes memorabilia, etc.) and because it "Works" very well for an adventure game with a broad audience.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;919162...Dungeon Crawl Classics = D&D + Smoking pot in your crazy uncle's dank basement full of Planet of the Apes memorabilia...

Did you have a hidden camera into my life, or what?!

"Tolkienesque" fantasy dominates the marketplace because it is what is popular and sells well. D&Desque games dominate the marketplace for the same reason.  Appendix N fantasy is generally out of print and obscure. People have heard of D&D and Tolkien and expect fantasy to be like that.

Novels must be in a trilogy at least, games must have elves and orcs. As for why Tolkien and D&D have become so popular I think it is because they draw so heavily on the foundational mythogy and legendry of Western and Northern Europe, King Arthur, the Rhinegold, knights in shining armor, wizards, the stories that we all grow up hearing in some form or other even if only in rewritten versions (like LotR).

The Tolkien mania that started at about the same time D&D hit created a sea change in fantasy Read LotR then read Urshurak and The Sword of Shanara.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;918941Lord of the Rings, with over 150 million copies sold, is one of the two bestselling books of the 20th century.

And this "D&D is not Tolkien" nonsense is minutia wankery of the "inner circle." To the vast majority of people, "Lord of the Rings has elves, Dungeons and Dragons has elves, World of Warcraft has elves, therefore LotR = D&D = WoW." People who differentiate D&D from Tolkien are statistically insignificant.

I disagree to some extent, btw.
We are talking about the popularity of this type of gaming, not the popularity of the books or movies.  So we are talking about the way gamers perceive it, since said popularity of games is based on how many people buy and play them.
  You are expressing, I think, properly, the view from the general population.  

But gamers have always talked about the difference, from the very beginning.  So,  in the gamers population,  the actual population subset we are involved with, People who differentiate D&D from Tolkien are statistically very significant.

Quote from: LordVreeg;919299I disagree to some extent, btw.
We are talking about the popularity of this type of gaming, not the popularity of the books or movies.  So we are talking about the way gamers perceive it, since said popularity of games is based on how many people buy and play them.
  You are expressing, I think, properly, the view from the general population.  

But gamers have always talked about the difference, from the very beginning.  So,  in the gamers population,  the actual population subset we are involved with, People who differentiate D&D from Tolkien are statistically very significant.

I think the % of gamers that actively post on a forum about gaming is a very small % of the number of actual gamer.s

The type of Tolkien you get in D&D is similar to the type of 'Spiderman' toy you buy in the dollar store (actually called Webman or Tarantulaman or maybe Spyders Man). There's a vague resemblance if you're five years old and don't pay too much attention.

Quote from: Simlasa;919371The type of Tolkien you get in D&D is similar to the type of 'Spiderman' toy you buy in the dollar store (actually called Webman or Tarantulaman or maybe Spyders Man). There's a vague resemblance if you're five years old and don't pay too much attention.

well put.

(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/1f/7c/4b/1f7c4b1e01beebf54596c1cf8c451c09.jpg)

Quote from: Simlasa;919371The type of Tolkien you get in D&D is similar to the type of 'Spiderman' toy you buy in the dollar store (actually called Webman or Tarantulaman or maybe Spyders Man). There's a vague resemblance if you're five years old and don't pay too much attention.

funnily enough my dollar store had legit spider man dolls last i was there.

Quote from: Simlasa;919371The type of Tolkien you get in D&D is similar to the type of 'Spiderman' toy you buy in the dollar store (actually called Webman or Tarantulaman or maybe Spyders Man). There's a vague resemblance if you're five years old and don't pay too much attention.

I know you ain't callin' my D&D the GoBots to Tolkien as fantasy world's version of Transformers! Them's fightin' words! :mad:

(Nah, I don't give that much of a shit. :p But I give some, I give some... :cool: )

Quote from: Ulairi;919369I think the % of gamers that actively post on a forum about gaming is a very small % of the number of actual gamer.s

DING! Winner!

MOST gamers are "casuals." I don't care if the game is WoW or D&D or anything else.  Most of them are casuals.

And to the casual gamer who is also (statistically probably) also a casual reader of Tolkien and every other damn thing, "D&D = LOTR = WoW."

I think the reason is simple.  Standard D&D fantasy is something that most find at least acceptable.  It might not be any player's perfect setting but it is something that people can agree on.  People can actually play it so they buy it.

Quote from: talysman;919152Was there someone who said that D&D isn't Tolkien? I know I said that what the OP defines as "Tolkienesque" has very little Tolkien in it. It has the fantasy races. It has the evil races, often being lead by supernatural big bads. So sure, from the perception of the general public, Tolkien = D&D. But that's not the question being asked, is it? It's "why hasn't anything else become as popular?"

I'd say the fact that D&D only borrowed superficial details like races is part of the reason why it succeeds. It's got something eminently recognizable, and can be used to do "Middle Earth", but it's not Middle Earth by default. It's lacking some of the specific details necessary for Tolkien's literary goals, but which would be detrimental if someone didn't want to play in Middle Earth. It's a kitchen sink setting, a hodge-podge of everything imaginable, without committing to one author's ideals. It can be molded to fit many different preferences, as opposed to a specific fantasy setting that has already made some decisions for you.

You miss my point.  To anybody but a hardcore "Tolkien canon wanker," D&D is INDISTINGUISHABLE from Lord of the Rings.

Most people are casual whatevers.  Casual readers, casual gamers, casual golf players, et cetera.

D&D isn't "Tolkienesque," to the OVERWHELMING majority of people who are familiar with both, they are identical.

Quote from: Simlasa;919371The type of Tolkien you get in D&D is similar to the type of 'Spiderman' toy you buy in the dollar store (actually called Webman or Tarantulaman or maybe Spyders Man). There's a vague resemblance if you're five years old and don't pay too much attention.

Quote from: TristramEvans;919413(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/1f/7c/4b/1f7c4b1e01beebf54596c1cf8c451c09.jpg)

That's an apt analogy and also a good insight into what makes D&D tick. Much like Turkish Captain America teams up with El Santo to fight a murderous, money-counterfeiting Spider-Man (I shit you not (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ThreeBigMen)), D&D's "bootleg Tolkien" gets Gandalf and Bilbo to team up with Conan and Odo of Bayeux to defeat Dracula.

Quote from: Opaopajr;919424I know you ain't callin' my D&D the GoBots to Tolkien as fantasy world's version of Transformers! Them's fightin' words! :mad:

Just to go all geek-pedantic on your metaphor, GoBots are more like E.R. Eddison to Tolkien's Transformers, being as they predated them. Deformers were be the more accurate metaphor ;)...

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4-B_9CurCnY/TyFI4svC5tI/AAAAAAAACqs/XxTqAqrge9A/s1600/20111227_298.JPG)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919448the OVERWHELMING majority of people who are familiar with both, they are identical.

Since when is reality based on majority consensus?

(besides in Mage: The Ascension...)

An overwhelming majority of the populace also thinks we only use 10% of our brains, Napoleon was a dwarf, the Great Wall of China can be seen from space, humans have 5 senses, and vikings had horned helmets. An argument based on the lowest common denominator of belief isn't worth much.

Quote from: The Butcher;919449D&D's "bootleg Tolkien" gets Gandalf and Bilbo to team up with Conan and Odo of Bayeux to defeat Dracula.

I think D&D should use that as an advertising slogan.

Quote from: TristramEvans;919455Just to go all geek-pedantic on your metaphor, GoBots are more like E.R. Eddison to Tolkien's Transformers, being as they predated them. Deformers were be the more accurate metaphor ;)...

Nice! I learn something new everyday! I don't remember seeing a "Deformers" logo before, though I vaguely remember the Thrifty store variants (mom would get us a $0.15 scoop each if we were good and patient). Now where the fuck's that sweet hat tip silhouette gif... hmm, I might end up learning that tomorrow.
:)

Quote from: TristramEvans;919457Since when is reality based on majority consensus?

Reality isn't, but in the context of popularity and market penetration, perception is king.

Quote from: DavetheLost;919279The Tolkien mania that started at about the same time D&D hit created a sea change in fantasy Read LotR then read Urshurak and The Sword of Shanara.

I read Sword of Shannara. You can't make me read it again.

Did Urshurak have a female hero and some type of crystal focused ray guns? If so, then you can't make me read it again either.

Quote from: Bren;919603I read Sword of Shannara. You can't make me read it again.

JUDGE: "Bren, you have been found guilty of driving 15mph over the limit in a construction zone...as punishment, you will be forced to read The Sword of Shannara three times and provide a book report to this court of no less than 1500 words."

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: "CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT, YOUR HONOR!"

Quote from: Bren;919603Did Urshurak have a female hero ... If so, then you can't make me read it again either.

Woah, hey, what?
What's wrong with female heroes?

The early Shannara series had the issue of having the main lead be an observer to the actual action except for the last arc, in which they don't do much than hold the magic macguffin.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919607JUDGE: "Bren, you have been found guilty of driving 15mph over the limit in a construction zone...as punishment, you will be forced to read The Sword of Shannara three times and provide a book report to this court of no less than 1500 words."

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: "CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT, YOUR HONOR!"

Very cruel and thankfully very unusual. :D

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;919612Woah, hey, what?
What's wrong with female heroes?

Suddenly I feel all nostalgic for TBP. :)

Quote from: DavetheLost;919279As for why Tolkien and D&D have become so popular I think it is because they draw so heavily on the foundational mythogy and legendry of Western and Northern Europe, King Arthur, the Rhinegold, knights in shining armor, wizards, the stories that we all grow up hearing in some form or other even if only in rewritten versions (like LotR).

I am not saying the "foundational mythology" thing isn't true, but why does it matter? What do gamers specifically get out from this? Why this not reflected in movies or TV shows to the same extent? Or for that matter why doesn't the equally powerful mythology of the Wild West or of the superhero genre play have quite the same impact? Is there a suggestion that gamers have a hidden, romantic yearning for simpler times (as they type away on their iPhones)?

Quote from: Soylent Green;919635I am not saying the "foundational mythology" thing isn't true, but why does it matter? What do gamers specifically get out from this? Why this not reflected in movies or TV shows to the same extent? Or for that matter why doesn't the equally powerful mythology of the Wild West or of the superhero genre play have quite the same impact? Is there a suggestion that gamers have a hidden, romantic yearning for simpler times (as they type away on their iPhones)?

The western had a pretty long and substantial day in the sun as a genre, so there's that. Meanwhile, movies and TV shows about medieval fantasy done right are more expensive than contemporary cop shows, reality shows, and sitcoms, so that's always held them back a bit.

I think the superhero genre is experiencing a boom right now similar to what the western went through. If the right things happen in the market I could easily imagine the superhero genre rising several ranks of popularity in tabletop form.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;919612What's wrong with female heroes?

What's wrong is that they're typically just male characters in girl costumes (see any Joss Whedon 90lb girl knocking out 200lb men with one hit).

GRRRRL POWER!

It gets old FAST.

Quote from: Soylent Green;919635I am not saying the "foundational mythology" thing isn't true, but why does it matter?

Because its a "language" all (Western European) gamers speak. D&D's success lies in it's quick and easy buy-in from players based on stereotypes and cliches everyone recognizes an understands. Makes the GM's job easier, and easier for players to get a footing and visualize the implied setting (really allows there to be an implied setting in the first place). As opposed to a game set in, say a pseudo-Song China, where the majority of Western players likely won't offhand know what to expect, whats expected of them, or what things are. The reason D&D looks so different now in comparison to 1st and 2nd edition, is that part of that "common language" now includes masses of anime and videogame influences.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;919612Woah, hey, what?
What's wrong with female heroes?

Too many random bear attacks during that time of the month

(http://25.media.tumblr.com/03e7db084bf0fa3ebdb93a1725520902/tumblr_mxz6feUpM91s2wio8o1_400.gif)

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919648What's wrong is that they're typically just male characters in girl costumes (see any Joss Whedon 90lb girl knocking out 200lb men with one hit).

GRRRRL POWER!

It gets old FAST.

Amen. And now that they're makin another A Wrinkle in Time film with the screenwriter from Frozen, I worry they're going to fuck over one of my favorite childhood books. Pretty sure if they also got hold of The Haunted Mountain, they'd gender swap the boy hero or turn him into fucking Peta.

Quote from: cranebump;919690Amen. And now that they're makin another A Wrinkle in Time film with the screenwriter from Frozen, I worry they're going to fuck over one of my favorite childhood books. Pretty sure if they also got hold of The Haunted Mountain, they'd gender swap the boy hero or turn him into fucking Peta.

The other one was awful so my hopes are not high.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919648What's wrong is that they're typically just male characters in girl costumes (see any Joss Whedon 90lb girl knocking out 200lb men with one hit).

OK.  I can't believe I'm actually defending Mr. Whedon, Mr. One Trick Pony with a Tortured Super Girl Fetish...  Which actually, ties into it.  All of Whedon's characters were super human girls, so in setting, they could in fact take out big tough guys.  Because Super Powers.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919648GRRRRL POWER!

It gets old FAST.

It was very much a thing in the 90's.  Which doesn't excuse it, but that's where it rose to prominence and has yet to truly die off.

Quote from: yosemitemike;919696The other one was awful so my hopes are not high.

Same.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;919707OK.  I can't believe I'm actually defending Mr. Whedon, Mr. One Trick Pony with a Tortured Super Girl Fetish...  Which actually, ties into it.  All of Whedon's characters were super human girls, so in setting, they could in fact take out big tough guys.  Because Super Powers.

Dollhouse. Eliza Dushku and the others were just normal humans with new memories, but she regularly beat up and killed guys twice her size.

Quote from: TristramEvans;919667Because its a "language" all (Western European) gamers speak. D&D's success lies in it's quick and easy buy-in from players based on stereotypes and cliches everyone recognizes an understands.

Maybe, but it is the only shared language? Millions of people have read Lord of the Rings, but everyone has seen Star Wars, everyone knows who Superman is.

Quote from: Soylent Green;919750Maybe, but it is the only shared language? Millions of people have read Lord of the Rings, but everyone has seen Star Wars, everyone knows who Superman is.

No,its not the only shared language, but thread's question was not "why is the fantasy genre preferred over other genres?" it was "why is Tolkienesque [sic] fantasy preferred over other, more unusual fantasy milieus?"

Play Talislanta.

Because the "market" is American.
The folklore is absent in your genetical memory. So popular fiction is what fills that void.

Quote from: jux;919760Because the "market" is American.
The folklore is absent in your genetical memory. So popular fiction is what fills that void.

That's absurd.

Quote from: Soylent Green;919750Maybe, but it is the only shared language? Millions of people have read Lord of the Rings, but everyone has seen Star Wars, everyone knows who Superman is.

D&D is probably the easiest story to re-tell though. Any other game world is more difficult to get started reconstructing an "authentic" feeling story.

Quote from: Onix;919763D&D is probably the easiest story to re-tell though. Any other game world is more difficult to get started reconstructing an "authentic" feeling story.

Right! Most people THINK D&D is the same as Tolkien, but actually D&D is a generic fantasy sludge made up of a lot of different sources.  It's very popularity is from that it is the bastard child of a billion fathers; it contains elements of sources ranging from fairy tales to cheezy Hollywood costume films to hundreds of books to Disney movies to Princess Bride to Monty Python.  Star Wars and comic book superheroes have not been reduced to the same level of cultural bedtime story that "fantasy" has.  The Western never really took off as a RPG genre because in the US we still take the myth of the Western seriously.  Most people are way, way too stupid to recognize the "Hollywood western" elements in D&D.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;919707OK.  I can't believe I'm actually defending Mr. Whedon, Mr. One Trick Pony with a Tortured Super Girl Fetish...  Which actually, ties into it.  All of Whedon's characters were super human girls, so in setting, they could in fact take out big tough guys.  Because Super Powers.

Leading to one of the most hilarious Unfortunate Implications ever: William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowell, and the goddamn Two Coreys managed to kill vampires with nothing but pluck, sass, and improvised weapons.  Sarah Michelle Gellar needed superpowers and a support team of superpowered henchmen, and she still got killed twice.

Quote from: yosemitemike;919696The other [Wrinkle in Time] was awful so my hopes are not high.

Oh, come on.  It had a cross-dressing Sean Cullen.

Wait, you're not using the MST3K scale, are you?

Quote from: Onix;919763D&D is probably the easiest story to re-tell though. Any other game world is more difficult to get started reconstructing an "authentic" feeling story.

I am not sure I understand in what why it's the easiest story to re-tell or what makes an "authentic" feeling story.

Personally I don't think there is any inherent property of fantasy that makes it more suited to gaming than any other genre by a mind-blowing margin.  I think it is all down to D&D, the fact that it came in first and that it still has one of the strongest procedural forms of play. Combined this has helped it build a critical mass and with the that the momentum to stay ahead.

If you take D&D and associated spin-off and clones of the equation, the next tier of fantasy games like Runequest or WHFRP aren't vastly more popular that Call of Cthulhu, Vampire or Star Wars. It's D&D that is practically a hobby on its own.

Quote from: daniel_ream;919827Leading to one of the most hilarious Unfortunate Implications ever: William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowell, and the goddamn Two Coreys managed to kill vampires with nothing but pluck, sass, and improvised weapons.  Sarah Michelle Gellar needed superpowers and a support team of superpowered henchmen, and she still got killed twice.

Don't look at me, man, all I know in that most of his work, he loves to make the Tortured Super Girl the main lead and focus of his shows, if he can (And I stand corrected on Dollhouse.)


As for why Fantasy is so popular?  That's an easy question to answer.

Because for a lot of people, reality sucks.  We don't get much in the way of choices, and when we do, they don't really matter.  But in Fantasy, we get stories of a single hero(ine) or a small group of them saving a village, kingdom or even the world, and those people get recognition.  Even those that fail often get remembered.  People feel like their choices matter more than just to their own life, but to the lives of others.  To be more than what they are.

It's egoism and escapism, and even better, it's harmless.  No one really gets hurt (unless you're playing with dicks, but Fantasy games ain't to blame, it's the people), it's all for fun.

Quote from: The Butcher;919449That's an apt analogy and also a good insight into what makes D&D tick. Much like Turkish Captain America teams up with El Santo to fight a murderous, money-counterfeiting Spider-Man (I shit you not (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ThreeBigMen)), D&D's "bootleg Tolkien" gets Gandalf and Bilbo to team up with Conan and Odo of Bayeux to defeat Dracula.

Now for contrast Turkish star was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww0k-80n-zI
And thrers that Russian star trek knock off that i cant find a clip of.  

Quote from: TristramEvans;919457Since when is reality based on majority consensus?

(besides in Mage: The Ascension...)

An overwhelming majority of the populace also thinks we only use 10% of our brains, Napoleon was a dwarf, the Great Wall of China can be seen from space, humans have 5 senses, and vikings had horned helmets. An argument based on the lowest common denominator of belief isn't worth much.

True that

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919607JUDGE: "Bren, you have been found guilty of driving 15mph over the limit in a construction zone...as punishment, you will be forced to read The Sword of Shannara three times and provide a book report to this court of no less than 1500 words."

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: "CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT, YOUR HONOR!"

ahahahahahaha

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;919612Woah, hey, what?
What's wrong with female heroes?

Nothing.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919648What's wrong is that they're typically just male characters in girl costumes (see any Joss Whedon 90lb girl knocking out 200lb men with one hit).

GRRRRL POWER!

It gets old FAST.

Im going to call you on this because by default most characters in fiction there gender is irreverent.
There are exceptions to this rule but the majority of then could be gender flipped with no problem bad remakes with standing.

Quote from: kosmos1214;919905Im going to call you on this because by default most characters in fiction there gender is irreverent.
There are exceptions to this rule but the majority of then could be gender flipped with no problem bad remakes with standing.

You're completely wrong. Sex differences are clear and obvious, only modernist/hegelian insanity says that men and women are the same. We act differently, we think differently, we face challenges differently.

Quote from: TristramEvans;919458I think D&D should use that as an advertising slogan.

Yes they should, as long as Jeff Rients (http://jrients.blogspot.com.br/2010/05/on-swords-sorcery-dungeons-dragons.html) gets credit. ;)

Quote from: Soylent Green;919859I am not sure I understand in what why it's the easiest story to re-tell or what makes an "authentic" feeling story.

Personally I don't think there is any inherent property of fantasy that makes it more suited to gaming than any other genre by a mind-blowing margin.  I think it is all down to D&D, the fact that it came in first and that it still has one of the strongest procedural forms of play. Combined this has helped it build a critical mass and with the that the momentum to stay ahead.

If you take D&D and associated spin-off and clones of the equation, the next tier of fantasy games like Runequest or WHFRP aren't vastly more popular that Call of Cthulhu, Vampire or Star Wars. It's D&D that is practically a hobby on its own.

Think about what it takes to Gm your first D&D game. Usually you design a maze and put premade monsters in it and a few traps. The players motive is usually to kill the monsters and take the treasure. The players have to choose between going left right or straight, fight or run.

Now think about any other game world. There has to be incentives. There are usually whole cities of choices. The story has to feel right to match the media the players know like the back of their hand. Its complicated.

I know you don't find it hard to build a world like that, but you're an expert (and no I'm not kidding). I can't tell you how many new players I've mentored that looked like deer in headlights until they get past a initial learning curve of just dealing with two or three options. I've also had players give up before they got over that curve. A starting GM has it even worse.

Quote from: Onix;919967Think about what it takes to Gm your first D&D game. Usually you design a maze and put premade monsters in it and a few traps. The players motive is usually to kill the monsters and take the treasure. The players have to choose between going left right or straight, fight or run.

Now think about any other game world. There has to be incentives. There are usually whole cities of choices. The story has to feel right to match the media the players know like the back of their hand. Its complicated.

I know you don't find it hard to build a world like that, but you're an expert (and no I'm not kidding). I can't tell you how many new players I've mentored that looked like deer in headlights until they get past a initial learning curve of just dealing with two or three options. I've also had players give up before they got over that curve. A starting GM has it even worse.

OK, I see what you mean now. Yes,  the dungeon provides a simple and direct structure for play that be very helpful for new GMs. In as far as one equates fantasy with dungeon crawling, this does represent an edge.

Quote from: Soylent Green;920006In as far as one equates fantasy with dungeon crawling, this does represent an edge.

Weren't the first couple adventures for Traveller pretty much dungeon crawls (I'm thinking Annic Nova/Shadows). Would non-Tolkien settings do better if they pushed the dungeon raid scenarios? Or would they just be backdoor D&D?

Quote from: Simlasa;920009Weren't the first couple adventures for Traveller pretty much dungeon crawls (I'm thinking Annic Nova/Shadows). Would non-Tolkien settings do better if they pushed the dungeon raid scenarios? Or would they just be backdoor D&D?

They might, but when the players are in the middle of a game, they might think "this doesn't feel very sci-fi" and it could negatively impact their impression of the game.

The other thing is D&D has the name recognition, new players don't usually wander into a game shop and say "Hey I heard of this game called Traveller, do you have it?" It's possible that they might find it in the store on the shelf and if it really seemed like their thing, they'd spring for it.

On the other hand I could see someone walking into a game shop and saying "Hey I heard you had a game for Star Wars."

Quote from: Onix;920016They might, but when the players are in the middle of a game, they might think "this doesn't feel very sci-fi" and it could negatively impact their impression of the game.

Nah, there'd be metal grates on the floor and wires and pipes on the walls... and storage lockers full of 'credits'... totally scifi!

Quote from: Soylent Green;920006OK, I see what you mean now. Yes,  the dungeon provides a simple and direct structure for play that be very helpful for new GMs. In as far as one equates fantasy with dungeon crawling, this does represent an edge.

I would contend that the players also pick up the game more readily because they have a simpler set of choices in a dungeon. It's very hard for us to remember struggling with what we were supposed to do in our first games. The next time you mentor a new player, watch them. There are parts, very early on, where they pause from confusion and have to process what they're doing. A lot of the time someone goads them "Comon this is simple!" but it's really a skill that you have to learn.* It takes mental effort and you can get better at it as you play more but it's very hard to remember that it once was hard. Kind of like how it once was hard to feed yourself and using a toilet was scary, we don't remember that and when we see a child having trouble it seems strange.

*I feel that it's a skill thats very worthwhile learning for real life.

Quote from: Simlasa;920021Nah, there'd be metal grates on the floor and wires and pipes on the walls... and storage lockers full of 'credits'... totally scifi!

Oh, well when you put it that way I guess I shouldn't have put them in a stone cavern with moss encrusted walls. That gelatinous cube might have also broke suspension.

Quote from: Onix;920022I would contend that the players also pick up the game more readily because they have a simpler set of choices in a dungeon.

Also, Levels. Both in the dungeon and on the character sheet. Levels are a direct bit of feedback that tells the Player they're progressing... doing it right.

Quote from: Simlasa;920028Also, Levels. Both in the dungeon and on the character sheet. Levels are a direct bit of feedback that tells the Player they're progressing... doing it right.

I hadn't considered that in my evaluation. Good point. I'm so allergic to the concept of character levels that I never really thought of the usefulness of the level framework as a concrete advancement paradigm.

At this point mostly momentum. It's not that English is becoming an increasingly dominant global language because it is easy to learn or is pleasingly constructed. People learn English because lots of people learn English and people use bog standard fantasy because lots of people use bog standard fantasy.

Which isn't a bad thing. D&D would probably do better to go back to the old practice of blatantly ripping off any kind of fantasy that's popular at the moment and throwing it into the stew instead of pretending that people give much of a crap about the specifically D&D canon that's built up such as drow, or beholders or the Forgotten Realms.

A cliche is worth a thousand words, it's often really good to start with stuff that everyone will get such as "Hera" or "orc" and then fuck with it. Far more efficient.

Quote from: Daztur;920037A cliche is worth a thousand words, it's often really good to start with stuff that everyone will get such as "Hera" or "orc" and then fuck with it. Far more efficient.

While that's true, I would argue that many more people are familiar with the D&D tropes than non-D&D fantasy, if only because so much non-D&D fantasy has been so heavily influenced by D&D by this point.

A few years ago I'd have said Game of Thrones is the exception that proves the rule, but there seems to be an explosion of fantasy based on history with a thin gloss of magic over it right now and I hope that helps drag the genre away from D&D.

Quote from: Simlasa;920028Also, Levels. Both in the dungeon and on the character sheet. Levels are a direct bit of feedback that tells the Player they're progressing... doing it right.

Progress is one of the greatest reinforcers.  Always.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919446DING! Winner!

MOST gamers are "casuals." I don't care if the game is WoW or D&D or anything else.  Most of them are casuals.

And to the casual gamer who is also (statistically probably) also a casual reader of Tolkien and every other damn thing, "D&D = LOTR = WoW."

Pardon, been traveling.

I still disagree. As I said, for people on the outside of the gaming world, sure.  I see them seeing Tolkien=Fantasy, D&D=Fantasy, therefor, Tolkien = D&D.  I can go with that.  But once you pick up the dice, even 'casually', I'd frankly say one of the first realizations of people is the mismatch.  It's pretty basic.  I'm reading my First D&D book.  I get to the Class section.  Of any version. "Oh, this Cleric looks interesting...hmm, ain't no clerics in Tolkien".  Done.  Or the notation that there are few wizards, but they don't seem to mind swords.  or the spell list.  etc, etc, etc.
Maybe for people who have only dabbled and played a game or two.  But more than that, nope.  D&D has similarities, but it isn't Tolkien.  

But you might be right in the fact that the width of what is Tolkienesque might cover a larger amount of ground.  'Similar but not equal to'.  And obviously, by the way Cubicle 7 has felt the need to release their bit to marry the two, both the strength of the urge to marry them and the obvious need to write a whole book to make them sort of compatible is made clear.

Quote from: LordVreeg;920046But you might be right in the fact that the width of what is Tolkienesque might cover a larger amount of ground.

Tolkinesque doesn't mean D&D = Tolkien. "esque" means "like".

In traditional european fantasy elves are little people and dwarves wear pointy hats. Most non-humans are "fairy folk" and flit in and out of existence.

Tolkien altered that to make them biological races more like human in that they had habitats and customs. Elves are tall and thin. Dwarves are miners and sturdy.  Ogres are not malicious spirits, but brutish humanlike creatures. The difference from classical fantasy is significant.

Because D&D follows this concept of creatures being more physical than they are magical, it breaks with the classic "fantasy" and follows Tolkien. Look up paintings of victorian fantasy. It does not look at all like D&D. Only in the case of dragons does it meet any kind of traditional fantasy setting.

Quote from: Onix;920052Tolkinesque doesn't mean D&D = Tolkien. "esque" means "like".

In traditional european fantasy elves are little people and dwarves wear pointy hats. Most non-humans are "fairy folk" and flit in and out of existence.

Tolkien altered that to make them biological races more like human in that they had habitats and customs. Elves are tall and thin. Dwarves are miners and sturdy.  Ogres are not malicious spirits, but brutish humanlike creatures. The difference from classical fantasy is significant.

Because D&D follows this concept of creatures being more physical than they are magical, it breaks with the classic "fantasy" and follows Tolkien. Look up paintings of victorian fantasy. It does not look at all like D&D. Only in the case of dragons does it meet any kind of traditional fantasy setting.

No disagreement.
And that is also a good point.  And, Orcs.

Quote from: Simlasa;920009Weren't the first couple adventures for Traveller pretty much dungeon crawls (I'm thinking Annic Nova/Shadows). Would non-Tolkien settings do better if they pushed the dungeon raid scenarios? Or would they just be backdoor D&D?

I don't know. As others have mentioned I think it's the name recognition, the momentum and critical mass of D&D (and D&D variants) that keeps it ahead of the rest by such an vast margin.

Gamma World originally was D&D reskinned in a post-apocalyptic setting. The early adventures were mostly dungeon crawls, the system had all the same features of D&D. It was never more than a moderate success.  

Likewise there were fantasy games that have focused on dungeon crawling that weren't D&D and there were fantasy games that did not focus on dungeon crawling at all. Some of these games have a healthy following but again they still just playing in a different league.

Quote from: Soylent Green;920067I don't know. As others have mentioned I think it's the name recognition, the momentum and critical mass of D&D (and D&D variants) that keeps it ahead of the rest by such an vast margin.

I agree. I brought up the Traveller adventures because, while I do see the appeal of dungeon crawls, I didn't think they were all that much to do with D&D-style fantasy lording it over everything else.
Everything about D&D has been copied by some other system... and lots has been improved upon (IMO)... but still it persists.

Quote from: daniel_ream;920042While that's true, I would argue that many more people are familiar with the D&D tropes than non-D&D fantasy, if only because so much non-D&D fantasy has been so heavily influenced by D&D by this point.

A few years ago I'd have said Game of Thrones is the exception that proves the rule, but there seems to be an explosion of fantasy based on history with a thin gloss of magic over it right now and I hope that helps drag the genre away from D&D.

Well in literature "dwarves, elves and orcs" fantasy is surprisingly thin on the ground. Off the top of my head I can't think of any popular dwarves/elves/orcs fantasy books that aren't tied to a gaming property since the 80's. Most popular fantasy literature is like Game of Thrones in that: non-Earth world, only humans (only very marginal non-humans) and magic that's not having a huge impact on the day to day life of a random Joe at the start of the books. Think everything from Eathsea to Wheel of Time to Chalion by Bujold. The main exceptions like Vlad Taltos and Malazan seem to directly spring from RPG campaigns.

Bog standard fantasy seems to spring more from gaming where you can see the influence of D&D really strongly, either directly or via Warhammer Fantasy and from there into Warcraft.

Don't really have a problem with dwarves, elves and orcs running around. The Tolkien-based thing that really gets to me is the Dark Lord. Any element that boils down the whole world into one central conflict vs. the Dark Lord makes a setting so much more boring. Tolkien had enough talent to pull it off but it's just fucking awful in the hands of his lesser imitators in a way that really turns me off. When I'm browsing the fantasy used book section any mention of some overarching Sauron-style Dark Lord gets the book put back on the shelf immediately.

Quote from: Daztur;920105Most popular fantasy literature is like Game of Thrones in that: non-Earth world, only humans (only very marginal non-humans) and magic that's not having a huge impact on the day to day life of a random Joe at the start of the books.

I wonder if part of that is authors hoping to sell movie rights, so keeping a lid on too many elements that would require huge FX budgets? I'm kinda basing that on some writers I know and how everything they do seems to be aimed at selling options on their books (also, they all seem to have history degrees for some reason).

Quote from: Daztur;920105Don't really have a problem with dwarves, elves and orcs running around. The Tolkien-based thing that really gets to me is the Dark Lord. Any element that boils down the whole world into one central conflict vs. the Dark Lord makes a setting so much more boring. Tolkien had enough talent to pull it off but it's just fucking awful in the hands of his lesser imitators in a way that really turns me off. When I'm browsing the fantasy used book section any mention of some overarching Sauron-style Dark Lord gets the book put back on the shelf immediately.

No way! Krull was awesome!

Quote from: Daztur;920105Well in literature [...]

That's where I'm going to stop you.  I would argue that that average media consumer is familiar with a wide variety of D&D tropes and that they got none of them from either playing D&D or reading fantasy literature (except perhaps licensed D&D novels).  They're absorbing them from the cultural zeitgeist, cartoons, video games, and movies.  I know a ton of millenials who love playing Munchkin and watching Adventure Time; none of them have ever played D&D (or indeed, any other RPG) and when I asked a couple of them they were surprised to learn that those properties were based on it.  They just accept the D&D tropes as something all fantasy has.

Quote from: Simlasa;920110I wonder if part of that is authors hoping to sell movie rights, so keeping a lid on too many elements that would require huge FX budgets? I'm kinda basing that on some writers I know and how everything they do seems to be aimed at selling options on their books (also, they all seem to have history degrees for some reason).

Really really doubt that. Writing fantasy with an adult audience with an eye for Hollywood money is insane. Just look at what's happened with attempts to adapt the Wheel of Time.

Also giving people pointy ears is hardly going to do much to the sfx budget. One of the hardest things is probably "in a city" just look at how much that cost Rome.

Now YA fiction, that's another story. Plenty of those look more like movie pitches than novels.

Quote from: Onix;920127No way! Krull was awesome!

Don't mind it in movies so much. A movie only has space for one real conflict. But if you have a six book series that all boils down to one conflict I'm going to get quite bored. For example even simple comic book good vs. evil storiea know enough to have lots of different sources of evil.

Quote from: daniel_ream;920133That's where I'm going to stop you.  I would argue that that average media consumer is familiar with a wide variety of D&D tropes and that they got none of them from either playing D&D or reading fantasy literature (except perhaps licensed D&D novels).  They're absorbing them from the cultural zeitgeist, cartoons, video games, and movies.  I know a ton of millenials who love playing Munchkin and watching Adventure Time; none of them have ever played D&D (or indeed, any other RPG) and when I asked a couple of them they were surprised to learn that those properties were based on it.  They just accept the D&D tropes as something all fantasy has.

The most successful D&D setting are not so much Tolkien-eqsue as they are kitchen sink settings.  Faerun and Golarion, taken as a whole, are both piles of various fantasy tropes and cliches.  They throw it all in there.  People are bound to find something they recognize or like in there somewhere.

Quote from: daniel_ream;920133That's where I'm going to stop you.  I would argue that that average media consumer is familiar with a wide variety of D&D tropes and that they got none of them from either playing D&D or reading fantasy literature (except perhaps licensed D&D novels).  They're absorbing them from the cultural zeitgeist, cartoons, video games, and movies.  I know a ton of millenials who love playing Munchkin and watching Adventure Time; none of them have ever played D&D (or indeed, any other RPG) and when I asked a couple of them they were surprised to learn that those properties were based on it.  They just accept the D&D tropes as something all fantasy has.

Indeed. Just a few pages back people were exaggerating the amount of elf/dwarf/orc fantasy literature when it's really pretty thin on the groud outside of 80's Tolkien rip-off and stuff with a direct D&D connection. Even 90's doorstoppers with very Tolkien plots don't have a lot of those elements.

Of course as you say most of this doesn't come from books. It's interesting seeing where it does come from though. A few years back my Korean students gave me a lot of "Poseidon summoned the zerg!" but these days Greek myth and Starcraft have both faded and I get a lot more Marvel doing Disney fairy tale cosplay. Frozen was a big bridge here as she's a Disney princess whose's also basically an X-Man. So lots of stories about princesses, witches, princes and heroes with super hero style powers. This has its upsides and downsides but it does make Vancian magic pretty alien.

Quote from: Onix;920052Tolkinesque doesn't mean D&D = Tolkien. "esque" means "like".

In traditional european fantasy elves are little people and dwarves wear pointy hats. Most non-humans are "fairy folk" and flit in and out of existence.

Tolkien altered that to make them biological races more like human in that they had habitats and customs. Elves are tall and thin. Dwarves are miners and sturdy.  Ogres are not malicious spirits, but brutish humanlike creatures. The difference from classical fantasy is significant.

Because D&D follows this concept of creatures being more physical than they are magical, it breaks with the classic "fantasy" and follows Tolkien. Look up paintings of victorian fantasy. It does not look at all like D&D. Only in the case of dragons does it meet any kind of traditional fantasy setting.

This is a bit iffy of a conjecture. For one, while Tolkien did indeed popularize the notions you put forth,he was neither the first, nor is his interpretation that incongruent with folklore and myth. Victorian fantasy, if anything is the outlier. Anyone familiar with the Norse and Celtic mythology that Tolkien was drawing upon recognizes his interpretations as merely drawing on older sources than what would have been the "pop culture" or zeitgeist of his era (e.g. the Victorian nursery fairies). Moreover, in this regard, Tolkien was following in a tradition started before him with Lord Dunsany, William Morris, E.R. Eddison, etc. Beyond that, the elements you're claiming as "Tolkienesque" were not intrinsic to D&D, in fact not present at all in OD&D. They were a veneer dropped on after the fact, and by that point there were a number of other significant influences such as Poul Anderson that combined into a D&D interpretation of, for example, elves, which are not much like Tolkien's elves at all. Certainly the triad of Elf/dwarf/halfling is directly lifted from Tolkien, but its a surface addition to the game that in and of itself doesn't define D&D in any meaningful way.

Quote from: TristramEvans;920164This is a bit iffy of a conjecture. For one, while Tolkien did indeed popularize the notions you put forth,he was neither the first, nor is his interpretation that incongruent with folklore and myth. Victorian fantasy, if anything is the outlier. Anyone familiar with the Norse and Celtic mythology that Tolkien was drawing upon recognizes his interpretations as merely drawing on older sources than what would have been the "pop culture" or zeitgeist of his era (e.g. the Victorian nursery fairies). Moreover, in this regard, Tolkien was following in a tradition started before him with Lord Dunsany, William Morris, E.R. Eddison, etc. Beyond that, the elements you're claiming as "Tolkienesque" were not intrinsic to D&D, in fact not present at all in OD&D. They were a veneer dropped on after the fact, and by that point there were a number of other significant influences such as Poul Anderson that combined into a D&D interpretation of, for example, elves, which are not much like Tolkien's elves at all. Certainly the triad of Elf/dwarf/halfling is directly lifted from Tolkien, but its a surface addition to the game that in and of itself doesn't define D&D in any meaningful way.

And Edison didn't invent the light bulb by himself. He had a crew of researchers. But he was the person who brought it to the public. In the same way, Tolkien didn't create in a vacuum but he popularized the genre. Even if D&D's creators read all Tolkien's influences and contemporaries (which they likely did) through the 80's and 90's whenever someone tried to pitch a D&D game, they would ask "Have you read Lord of the Rings?" It is the touchstone that people would reference.

Again I'm not saying D&D = Tolkien, but you're suffering from the curse of knowledge. As someone who has dipped deeply into the game and compared it to the literature, the gulf seems like the Mariana Trench. To anyone else who looks at the map, and compares the two, it's just a line on the map and the two are situated right next to each other. Sure there's some water between them, but they're in the same region.

Because of the curse of knowledge I doubt you'll be able to see it from that perspective though. That's okay, but for the majority of humans, D&D bears more than a passing resemblance to Tolkien. Yes there are differences, I'll grant that in spades. It was clearly written with many influences but when you make the D&D poster it looks an awful lot like the Lord of the Rings roster in a dungeon fighting Smaug.

Quote from: daniel_ream;920133That's where I'm going to stop you.  I would argue that that average media consumer is familiar with a wide variety of D&D tropes and that they got none of them from either playing D&D or reading fantasy literature (except perhaps licensed D&D novels).  They're absorbing them from the cultural zeitgeist, cartoons, video games, and movies.  I know a ton of millenials who love playing Munchkin and watching Adventure Time; none of them have ever played D&D (or indeed, any other RPG) and when I asked a couple of them they were surprised to learn that those properties were based on it.  They just accept the D&D tropes as something all fantasy has.

On the other hand, it mostly has to do that a large number (if not majority) of culture's creators nowadays did play RPGs when they were cutting their teeth in creation aspect.

I dunno, Dark Sun was the shit for a while when it came out, to the point where I wondered why so much fantasy suddenly looked like Mad Max and S&M crossed themselves in some kind of bizarre cult. The same way punk was so present in the art of games for a while as well. Or Goth culture. It's just trends and fads. Tolkienesque (and really, please emphasize the esque) fantasy is going strong because there's just so many pretender products out there reacting to either a) the actual Tolkien novels b) the Jackson movie trilogies or c) the pile of D&D works that have been pumped out since the 80s.

But D&D fantasy, which is what I call D&D's approach to fantasy, has the advantage that it is very game-able (for reasons better expressed earlier in this thread). And what is it? Bits of just about every fantastic element the creators and subsequent writers thought was cool and stitched into this setting, not caring if its internally consistent or works. D&D Fantasy is about as coherent as the Godzilla canon, but people love both for about the same reasons.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919448You miss my point.  To anybody but a hardcore "Tolkien canon wanker," D&D is INDISTINGUISHABLE from Lord of the Rings.

Most people are casual whatevers.  Casual readers, casual gamers, casual golf players, et cetera.

D&D isn't "Tolkienesque," to the OVERWHELMING majority of people who are familiar with both, they are identical.

NO, I got that point. I was saying that that wasn't the point of the OP.

But as for the "most people are casuals" statement, there's a whole topic detour we could take on that. Whenever the perennial topic of "RPGs are dying! Why won't more people play RPGs" topic pops up, I've said many times that RPGs won't get many new players because RPG designers cater to hardcore RPGers, who want really detailed game systems they can learn to master, whereas all those people who might potentially become roleplayers, but don't? They're casuals. They don't want a game you have to study. They'd prefer not to learn the rules at all. They just want to pretend to be an elf or something. And the general reaction on RPG forums to players who don't want to learn the rules or master the system is one of hate. All those threads about "Why is this one player I game with so stupid? Can't he learn which dice to roll?" and "Why are some players playing non-optimal characters?"

But yeah, that's a digression.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919826Right! Most people THINK D&D is the same as Tolkien, but actually D&D is a generic fantasy sludge made up of a lot of different sources.  It's very popularity is from that it is the bastard child of a billion fathers; it contains elements of sources ranging from fairy tales to cheezy Hollywood costume films to hundreds of books to Disney movies to Princess Bride to Monty Python.

This was a point I was making earlier, to directly answer the OP question. Kitchen sink settings have a little bit of everything, something for everyone. Every "non-Tolkienesque" fantasy appeal to a smaller group. So, of course, D&D and settings like that is more popular, because bigger group > smaller group, every time.

Another perennial topic related to this one is "why aren't sci-fi RPGs more popular?" It's because there's no real kitchen sink sci-fi setting. Space empire sci-fi plays out much differently than post-apoc sci-fi, near-future sci-fi, or hardcore sci-fi. Star Trek and Star Wars come closest to mass appeal, but they are still not universal, and despite some overlap, appeal to distinct groups of fans... and neither will appeal to hardcore post-apoc fans.

Quote from: talysman;920220Another perennial topic related to this one is "why aren't sci-fi RPGs more popular?" It's because there's no real kitchen sink sci-fi setting. Space empire sci-fi plays out much differently than post-apoc sci-fi, near-future sci-fi, or hardcore sci-fi. Star Trek and Star Wars come closest to mass appeal, but they are still not universal, and despite some overlap, appeal to distinct groups of fans... and neither will appeal to hardcore post-apoc fans.

But then there wasn't a kitchen-sink fantasy setting either until D&D smashed together every aspect of mythology from every different pantheons, sword & sorcery stories, medieval history - real and not, world folklore, Tolkien and his peers, cowboys and indians, Star Trek, the music of Pink Floyd, McDonalds, Gilligan's Island, Ben Hur, the Arabian Nights, Disneyland and Hammer Horror movies and brew what we think of as fantasy.

The fact that same feat was never quite pulled off for sci-fi (and when we say sci-fi in this sort of content most of use mean space opera) doesn't prove that it could not have been done.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;920218I dunno, Dark Sun was the shit for a while when it came out, to the point where I wondered why so much fantasy suddenly looked like Mad Max and S&M crossed themselves in some kind of bizarre cult. The same way punk was so present in the art of games for a while as well. Or Goth culture. It's just trends and fads. Tolkienesque (and really, please emphasize the esque) fantasy is going strong because there's just so many pretender products out there reacting to either a) the actual Tolkien novels b) the Jackson movie trilogies or c) the pile of D&D works that have been pumped out since the 80s.

I don't think that's really the case.  It just looks like it's the case.  Some people were very enthusiastic about Dark Sun and very vocal about that enthusiasm but sales were much lower than sale for Forgotten Realms.  A few people gushed about Dark Sun and the silent majority went on playing Forgotten Realms.  A few vocal people in a particular community create the impression that this or that game is the new hotness when this really isn't the case.  RPG.net is the perfect microcosm of this in action.  There is a long succession of rpg.net darlings that have come and gone.  If you went there years ago, you might get the impression that, say, Dogs in the Vineyard was the new hot fad that everyone was talking about.  The was the rpg.net darling for a while.  There was lots of buzz about it.  Any time someone came on to ask for a system for some RPG they were going to run, someone suggested Dogs in the Vineyard regardless of how far they had to stretch to get the system to fit.  It was everywhere.  In the real world, it was little known and little cared about micro-press RPG.  It was certainly never a fad except in that community.  I thin a lot of apparent fads are really just a few very vocal and active people gushing about their latest infatuation.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;918870None of that explains why settings which expanded generic fantasy were not successful.

Eberron is D&D with steampunk and pulp added.
Planescape is D&D with infinite planes of wonder and horror added.
Spelljammer is D&D in space.

All three of those are absurdly popular even now and their main failings were bad timing and company mismanagement.

Quote from: Bren;919603I read Sword of Shannara. You can't make me read it again.

Did Urshurak have a female hero and some type of crystal focused ray guns? If so, then you can't make me read it again either.

So... I shouldnt like tell you there was plans for a movie way way back?

Oh... and Yeh. Ray gun. Check.

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqfIBD6GUYI/TPBPQerC6pI/AAAAAAAAAFU/RB-AadwVGxI/s640/scan0006.jpg)

Quote from: kosmos1214;919905Now for contrast Turkish star was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww0k-80n-zI

And thrers that Russian star trek knock off that i cant find a clip of.  

1: Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam. Its not Star Wars. It just uses clips from it and has some inevitable costume rip-offs. Weird movie.

2: Star Wreck? Thats Finnish. There is though a Turkish Star Trek that actually is a Star Trek rip-off.

Almost everytime I pass by the Shannara books on the shelves of the local bookstore, for the briefest moment in my mind's eye I interpret the title as "The Sword of Shanana". I have the nagging feeling that somewhere, in another dimension or the recesses of Lucien's Library, there is a book called The Sword of Shanana, and it is awesome in every way the Shanara book was awful.

Quote from: yosemitemike;920283I don't think that's really the case.  It just looks like it's the case.  Some people were very enthusiastic about Dark Sun and very vocal about that enthusiasm but sales were much lower than sale for Forgotten Realms.  A few people gushed about Dark Sun and the silent majority went on playing Forgotten Realms.

It might have been a "in my city" kind of thing. I was honestly confused why it was everywhere and everyone was talking about. When I was looking for some tolkienesque fantasy to play, I couldn't find it for a while.

Quote from: Omega;920349So... I shouldnt like tell you there was plans for a movie way way back?

There's a Shannara TV series. Watched the first half dozen episodes. It sucked.

QuoteOh... and Yeh. Ray gun. Check.

Yeah that was what I thought I remembered. It sucked. A lot. :D

Quote from: Bren;920382There's a Shannara TV series. Watched the first half dozen episodes. It sucked.

Then you missed out on the really terrible stuff. I think my favorite was the flashy rave party (preceded by a viewing of Star Trek) the racist human commune held that ended in a Wild West-style gunfight.

Quote from: Brand55;920410Then you missed out on the really terrible stuff. I think my favorite was the flashy rave party (preceded by a viewing of Star Trek) the racist human commune held that ended in a Wild West-style gunfight.

:eek:

Quote from: Bren;920414:eek:

Oh yes. It was hilarious to watch the humans boo Spock because they thought he was an elf.

Quote from: TristramEvans;920352Almost everytime I pass by the Shannara books on the shelves of the local bookstore, for the briefest moment in my mind's eye I interpret the title as "The Sword of Shanana".

[ATTACH=CONFIG]392[/ATTACH]

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;920366It might have been a "in my city" kind of thing. I was honestly confused why it was everywhere and everyone was talking about.

My gut impression was that since it started everyone at third level and had a lot of OMG SO METAL spells, it appealed strongly to the munchkins and adolescent power fantasy gamers.  That was the zeitgeist around here, anyway.

Quote from: Omega;920349Oh... and Yeh. Ray gun. Check.

Now I find myself wondering if Sam Raimi has read that, because there's an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys set in Atlantis that's eerily similar in visual style.

Quote from: Brand55;920410I think my favorite was the flashy rave party (preceded by a viewing of Star Trek) the racist human commune held that ended in a Wild West-style gunfight.

...this is not the Shannara I remember.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;918801Why is the fantasy market so stagnant?

I was one of the people who had some interest in Exalted because it was non-Tolkien.  I can't say I particularly favored the system and some of the influences (not a huge anime fan), but I did like a fantasy game with a shortage of Elves and Orcs.  

It's hard to move away from the references you mentioned, because they're quite literally everywhere. When I was a kid the main 'fantasy' influence I had was Conan and Willow.  

Maybe it's also because we have difficulty moving away from things we're familiar with?  Having 'like humans except X' in a fantasy setting makes it easier for people to roleplay, I guess.  Easier to take inspiration from other sources, maybe?

Eh.  I think there should be more 'weird' science fiction.

Quote from: daniel_ream;920419Now I find myself wondering if Sam Raimi has read that, because there's an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys set in Atlantis that's eerily similar in visual style.

There's also that old George Pal movie version of Atlantis that featured heat ray turrets (along with submarines and a magically transformed boar-men slave class).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054642/

Quote from: Simlasa;920487There's also that old George Pal movie version of Atlantis that featured heat ray turrets (along with submarines and a magically transformed boar-men slave class).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054642/

Oh, that's almost certainly it then.  HTLJ cribbed a lot from old sword and sandal movies that nobody remembers.  People forget that it started as part of the Action Pack, which was quite literally "let's get the TV rights to 70's B movies and remake them".

Quote from: daniel_ream;920042While that's true, I would argue that many more people are familiar with the D&D tropes than non-D&D fantasy, if only because so much non-D&D fantasy has been so heavily influenced by D&D by this point.

A few years ago I'd have said Game of Thrones is the exception that proves the rule, but there seems to be an explosion of fantasy based on history with a thin gloss of magic over it right now and I hope that helps drag the genre away from D&D.

A more likely scenario is that with the popularity of GoT, there will be more tits and ass in future fantasy movies/TV shows.

Quote from: TristramEvans;920164This is a bit iffy of a conjecture. For one, while Tolkien did indeed popularize the notions you put forth,he was neither the first, nor is his interpretation that incongruent with folklore and myth. Victorian fantasy, if anything is the outlier. Anyone familiar with the Norse and Celtic mythology that Tolkien was drawing upon recognizes his interpretations as merely drawing on older sources than what would have been the "pop culture" or zeitgeist of his era (e.g. the Victorian nursery fairies). Moreover, in this regard, Tolkien was following in a tradition started before him with Lord Dunsany, William Morris, E.R. Eddison, etc. Beyond that, the elements you're claiming as "Tolkienesque" were not intrinsic to D&D, in fact not present at all in OD&D. They were a veneer dropped on after the fact, and by that point there were a number of other significant influences such as Poul Anderson that combined into a D&D interpretation of, for example, elves, which are not much like Tolkien's elves at all. Certainly the triad of Elf/dwarf/halfling is directly lifted from Tolkien, but its a surface addition to the game that in and of itself doesn't define D&D in any meaningful way.

Two generations of dumbasses never got this through their thick skulls. If only I had a dollar for every time someone whined "But... but... the elfs in LOTR are as tall as men, not shorter!" or "But... but... Gandalf used a sword!" I could have retired years ago.

That said, Tolkienesque fantasy is like the tomato sauce you use to make your own marinara. It's a simple, convenient and generic enough place to start and it's easy to add what you want to make your own special blend. Tolkien was but one of many pinches and dashes Gygax used to create D&D. He just happens to be the most popular by a huge margin, so a number of gamers to this day assume that every setting should be like Middle Earth.

Quote from: Bren;920382There's a Shannara TV series. Watched the first half dozen episodes. It sucked.

Wow? I read about the Urshurak movie back in 79. Took em 34 years?

Quote from: Onix;920195And Edison didn't invent the light bulb by himself. He had a crew of researchers. But he was the person who brought it to the public. In the same way, Tolkien didn't create in a vacuum but he popularized the genre. Even if D&D's creators read all Tolkien's influences and contemporaries (which they likely did) through the 80's and 90's whenever someone tried to pitch a D&D game, they would ask "Have you read Lord of the Rings?" It is the touchstone that people would reference.

Again I'm not saying D&D = Tolkien, but you're suffering from the curse of knowledge. As someone who has dipped deeply into the game and compared it to the literature, the gulf seems like the Mariana Trench. To anyone else who looks at the map, and compares the two, it's just a line on the map and the two are situated right next to each other. Sure there's some water between them, but they're in the same region.

Because of the curse of knowledge I doubt you'll be able to see it from that perspective though. That's okay, but for the majority of humans, D&D bears more than a passing resemblance to Tolkien. Yes there are differences, I'll grant that in spades. It was clearly written with many influences but when you make the D&D poster it looks an awful lot like the Lord of the Rings roster in a dungeon fighting Smaug.

I understand the argument, I guess my point is that masses believing it so doesn't seem a good enough argument to make it so. So yeah, I may come across as the geeky pedant every time I object to D&D being called "Tolkienesque", but then again, really how many of the masses are ever even going to employ that term? And yeah, its an uphill, pointless battle educating one person at a time about the wide gulf I'm perceiving vs their bird's eye view of a map, but heck, making pointless pedantic geeky arguments is 88% of the reason I post on forums ;)

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919912You're completely wrong. Sex differences are clear and obvious, only modernist/hegelian insanity says that men and women are the same. We act differently, we think differently, we face challenges differently.

Heres the rub in REAL life yes men and women have different tendency's but in fiction these things break down the fact that people except these breaks from reality to a reasonable degree is called suspension of disbelief.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the gender of a character has little to do with characterization unless its tied to something.

For example if you write a story and the only different between the main character is there gender you will perceive them as different even though the only thing that changed is there gender.

That is to say there characterization didn't change but your perception of them did.
A good example of what im getting at can be found in Kinos journey where your perception of Kino tends to be different in the tv show compared to the books.

You see in the books Kino is written gender-less But in the tv show do to need of a voice and covering how Kino became a traveler they ended up gendered.
Because of this people who watch the tv show tend to think of Kino as a girl.
Where as in the peaple who have read the books its pretty even split with a margin that think of Kino as gender-less.

 

Another example can be found in Assuko Asano's  no.6 where she has talked about how both the main characters Shion and Nezumi could have just as easily been women.

Whats more she played with that idea a lot and show cased it even in the final work.

The only reason they both have to be the same sex is because she wanted people to focus on there interactions as people and not assume that they where automatically romantic.

Or even look at the myriad of charters that are women that could be men and you would not know the difference this also goes the other way as well with male characters that could as easily be women and you wouldn't know the difference.

Quote from: Omega;9203501: Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam. Its not Star Wars. It just uses clips from it and has some inevitable costume rip-offs. Weird movie.

2: Star Wreck? Thats Finnish. There is though a Turkish Star Trek that actually is a Star Trek rip-off.

Well yah Turkish star wars isnt a full on knock off still ballsy to rip some of that  footage though.
As to the Russian star trek its a thing we have a book on tv shows that talks about it .
And its Russian made during the cold war some time big speeches about Lenin and the like.

Quote from: kosmos1214;920715Another thing to keep in mind is that the gender of a character has little to do with characterization unless its tied to something.

[...]

Or even look at the myriad of charters that are women that could be men and you would not know the difference this also goes the other way as well with male characters that could as easily be women and you wouldn't know the difference.

Utter, utter bollocks.

If your media field is entirely recent anime, then your conclusion is going to be severely biased by the fact that Japan is currently undergoing a massive national masculinity crisis.  Japanese men are increasingly more passive, submissive and feminized.  Forget breeding, people aren't even having sex any more because Japanese men have pretty much given up on pursuing women, as well as other traditionally male pursuits.  The country is in irreparable demographic collapse at this point.  This is reflected in their popular culture and their media.

What sex[1] people are absolutely defines their character, outlook, behaviour and actions; media that people actually consume reflects this.


[1] Gender is for nouns.  Biological organisms have sex.  Unless they're Japanese.

Quote from: daniel_ream;920745Japanese men are increasingly more passive, submissive and feminized.  Forget breeding, people aren't even having sex any more because Japanese men have pretty much given up on pursuing women, as well as other traditionally male pursuits.  The country is in irreparable demographic collapse at this point.  This is reflected in their popular culture and their media.

As an occasional anime watcher with little investment in the genre's life or death, I have raised a skeptical eyebrow and wish to know details pertinent to this theory. How exactly is a sexless demographic crash reflected in their media?

Quote from: kosmos1214;920717As to the Russian star trek its a thing we have a book on tv shows that talks about it .
And its Russian made during the cold war some time big speeches about Lenin and the like.

According to a quick search apparently Cosmos Patrol from the 60s never existed. There is though Москва - Кассиопея from the 70s. Though only in a general "exploration ship" sort of way from what have seen so far.

Quote from: Omega;920779According to a quick search apparently Cosmos Patrol from the 60s never existed.

There's always Raumpatrouille Orion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1OKB0yXh0E

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919648What's wrong is that they're typically just male characters in girl costumes (see any Joss Whedon 90lb girl knocking out 200lb men with one hit).

GRRRRL POWER!

It gets old FAST.

Ehh? Just have to say for the record here, that a kick from any classically trained ballet dancer, like say Summer Glau, can be a completely crippling experience for any man.

When I was much younger, I played football, full tackle football. However my greatest sports injury occurred while dancing Shaherizad when I was kicked by my partner (whom was not my first choice as a partner as I had been practicing with another young lady, except that for the actual performance the choreographer had insisted I dance with the Primadonna at the last minute without a rehearsal or any chance to practice to accomodate style differences. She was a spoiled little brat, who could not dance.), this extremely clumsy ballerina wearing pointe shoes. She was in a full spin at the time and had drifted slightly like an off-balance top in toward where I was holding up another ballerina, and she caught me perfectly.

Thank god for cups, or I would have never had children after that. As a result  I dropped my charge, and we had to end that dance segment early and close the curtain. Shortly after that I crawled off of the stage in agony, and it would be a couple weeks before I would dance again. The Ballerina, maybe 104 tops. Me, 165, and crippled with a single spinning kick...

In that scene in the Odi Bar where River Tam grabbed Jayne by the balls and then reverse kicked him in the back of the head with her combat boots, this made me flinch as I instantaneously remembered my own experiences with the Shaherizad.

Quote from: GameDaddy;920790Ehh? Just have to say for the record here, that a kick from any classically trained ballet dancer, like say Summer Glau, can be a completely crippling experience for any man.

When I was much younger, I played football, full tackle football. However my greatest sports injury occurred while dancing Shaherizad when I was kicked by my partner (whom was not my first choice as a partner as I had been practicing with another young lady, except that for the actual performance the choreographer had insisted I dance with the Primadonna at the last minute without a rehearsal or any chance to practice to accomodate style differences. She was a spoiled little brat, who could not dance.), this extremely clumsy ballerina wearing pointe shoes. She was in a full spin at the time and had drifted slightly like an off-balance top in toward where I was holding up another ballerina, and she caught me perfectly.

Thank god for cups, or I would have never had children after that. As a result  I dropped my charge, and we had to end that dance segment early and close the curtain. Shortly after that I crawled off of the stage in agony, and it would be a couple weeks before I would dance again. The Ballerina, maybe 104 tops. Me, 165, and crippled with a single spinning kick...

In that scene in the Odi Bar where River Tam grabbed Jayne by the balls and then reverse kicked him in the back of the head with her combat boots, this made me flinch as I instantaneously remembered my own experiences with the Shaherizad.

You still didn't disprove his statement.

ONE PUNCH.  Not a kick to the genitals which will take down just about anything.  But a punch to the head, from a 100lbs. woman to a combat trained 180+ male.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;920814You still didn't disprove his statement.

ONE PUNCH.  Not a kick to the genitals which will take down just about anything.  But a punch to the head, from a 100lbs. woman to a combat trained 180+ male.

While certainly anything can happen, there's a good reason that the UFC and other organizations have weight classes. Ronda Rousey or Joanna Jedrzejczyk can beat up a lot of guys out there, but as badass as they are they'd get their butts handed to them if they ever had to take on someone like Daniel Cormier or Michael Bisping in a fight.

That's why I always have to suspend disbelief when I see much smaller fighters, male or female, wading through supposedly capable opposition in movies and television shows. It happens a lot.

I play games with elves and watch movies with CGI heroes wearing brightly colored pajamas. I'm fine with suspending my disbelief to accept female waif mega-ninjas.

Quote from: Spinachcat;920821I play games with elves and watch movies with CGI heroes wearing brightly colored pajamas. I'm fine with suspending my disbelief to accept female waif mega-ninjas.

Hush, you.  REAL MEN are grunting and scratching their balls.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;920822Hush, you.  REAL MEN are grunting and scratching their balls.

And you can only uncleverly quip about it....

Quote from: jeff37923;920825And you can only uncleverly quip about it....

Well, he doesn't have any balls, so he can't scratch them, obviously.

Quote from: Brand55;920816While certainly anything can happen, there's a good reason that the UFC and other organizations have weight classes. Ronda Rousey or Joanna Jedrzejczyk can beat up a lot of guys out there, but as badass as they are they'd get their butts handed to them if they ever had to take on someone like Daniel Cormier or Michael Bisping in a fight.

That's why I always have to suspend disbelief when I see much smaller fighters, male or female, wading through supposedly capable opposition in movies and television shows. It happens a lot.

Also just being able to puch people over and over again without a glove and not fuck up your hands. Only real fist fight I ever had I got a bone bruise in my hand from punching the other guy in the head just one time. Luckily that knocked him down so I could get away.

Hurt like fuck for days.

Quote from: Simlasa;920787There's always Raumpatrouille Orion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1OKB0yXh0E

Thats German. Great series though and vastly underrated.

Well please keep in mind that at first level Gandalf still had to fear for his life whenever attacked by the common house cat.:eek:

I think "D&D fantasy" dominates because there is a clear default activity - go in dungeons, kill things, get loot. Few other games really have this, though I liked WEG Star Wars with its very clear "You are Rebels. Fight the Imperials" mandate. I guess Superheroes genre with its clear "You are a super team. Fight bad guys & foil their plans" mandate could have been dominant, and it's notable that recent iterations of D&D have themes and published adventures very much in this reactive "Foil the Villain!" mould, rather than OD&D's proactive "Get the Loot!" mould.

I find science fiction games in particular very often fail to properly answer the vital "What do we do?" question, and "Anything you want" isn't really a good answer.

Quote from: Omega;920996Thats German. Great series though and vastly underrated.

What's wrong with being German? (I was just thinking European Star Trek-ish).

Quote from: Simlasa;921007What's wrong with being German? (I was just thinking European Star Trek-ish).

The subtopic was Russian ST.

Lots of examples from other countries. Some more blatant than others.

Theres also some interesting fantasy series out there that isnt just a re-hash of LOTR. Harder to find though.

Quote from: S'mon;921005I think "D&D fantasy" dominates because there is a clear default activity - go in dungeons, kill things, get loot. Few other games really have this, though I liked WEG Star Wars with its very clear "You are Rebels. Fight the Imperials" mandate. I guess Superheroes genre with its clear "You are a super team. Fight bad guys & foil their plans" mandate could have been dominant, and it's notable that recent iterations of D&D have themes and published adventures very much in this reactive "Foil the Villain!" mould, rather than OD&D's proactive "Get the Loot!" mould.

I find science fiction games in particular very often fail to properly answer the vital "What do we do?" question, and "Anything you want" isn't really a good answer.

Yup while they look the same on paper treasure hunting and foiling villains have an important difference:
-Foiling the villains: mysterious stranger is in the inn. "Oh god, some other random guy who's going to ask for help."
-Treasure hunting:mysterious stranger is in the in. "Oh good, let's see if we can pump him for information about loot."

Quote from: S'mon;921005I find science fiction games in particular very often fail to properly answer the vital "What do we do?" question, and "Anything you want" isn't really a good answer.

This has been my biggest recurring problem with SFRPGs. When faced with the huge possibility of choices that the Players could do, they just stare blankly like a deer in the headlights. You really do have to spoon feed many of the starting adventures until the players get the understanding that they can do "Anything at all".

Quote from: jeff37923;921256You really do have to spoon feed many of the starting adventures until the players get the understanding that they can do "Anything at all".

That's a natural human trait, though, sometimes referred to as the Paradox of Choice.  I think it's also exacerbated by the fact that in an SF setting, what you can do is highly setting dependent, and at the beginning most players are unlikely to have fully absorbed all of the implications of the particular premise.

The 'what do we do?' issue of Sci Fi rpgs is solved well in Bulldogs!.  You're a little more than a 'space UPS' delivery crew in the worst broken down truck in the company, with a 'manager' who'd like nothing more than to see you take a walk without your vacc suit.

Gets the ball rolling quite nicely!

Quote from: S'mon;921005I think "D&D fantasy" dominates because there is a clear default activity - go in dungeons, kill things, get loot. Few other games really have this, though I liked WEG Star Wars with its very clear "You are Rebels. Fight the Imperials" mandate. I guess Superheroes genre with its clear "You are a super team. Fight bad guys & foil their plans" mandate could have been dominant, and it's notable that recent iterations of D&D have themes and published adventures very much in this reactive "Foil the Villain!" mould, rather than OD&D's proactive "Get the Loot!" mould.

I find science fiction games in particular very often fail to properly answer the vital "What do we do?" question, and "Anything you want" isn't really a good answer.

Good points all round.

There is an issue regard implied assumption about "what we do" even in fantasy. I meet a lot of GMs who will say "anything you want" when they really mean "go in dungeons, kill things, get loot". I guess they think this too obvious to say, but it isn't really and it can land you end with mismatched characters and expectation.

The premise "Foil the Villian" tends to work better for supers, horror, or campaigns with a built-in focus (Star Wars Rebel Alliance, Ghostbusters, espionage) than "Get the Loot", which as you mention tends favours a reactive than proactive mindset. If you are used to running games in one mode it can be tricky to retrain yourself to run a game in the other.

Note however that one of the most successful games of all time (albeit passed it's peak) are Vampire and assorted WoD games. In my experience with WoD (limited as it is) is that they are rubbish as explaining what exactly it is characters do. They set a tone, a mood but fall short of spelling it out in simple terms. So, yeah, there are always exceptions - in this case a pretty big exception.

Quote from: jeff37923;921256This has been my biggest recurring problem with SFRPGs. When faced with the huge possibility of choices that the Players could do, they just stare blankly like a deer in the headlights. You really do have to spoon feed many of the starting adventures until the players get the understanding that they can do "Anything at all".

Repeating a bit what I said in my response, the truth is that is really isn't "Anything at all" in most instances, is it?
For one thing if you are playing a sci-fi game you probably want to engage sci-fi themes or why bother?
If the GM suggested this game. He probably has some ideas or preferences. Should they not be considered?
Also the rules probably support some activities more than others.
And in any event you probably want all the players to interact. You don't want a game with dentist PC on Century-4 and a cello player back on Earth.

There are implied assumptions. GMs, please, spell these out. Players are not mind readers!

Quote from: Soylent Green;921462Repeating a bit what I said in my response, the truth is that is really isn't "Anything at all" in most instances, is it?
For one thing if you are playing a sci-fi game you probably want to engage sci-fi themes or why bother?
If the GM suggested this game. He probably has some ideas or preferences. Should they not be considered?
Also the rules probably support some activities more than others.
And in any event you probably want all the players to interact. You don't want a game with dentist PC on Century-4 and a cello player back on Earth.

There are implied assumptions. GMs, please, spell these out. Players are not mind readers!

Sci-fi is harder to get a handle on that fantasy since it's hard to know what kind of basic tech people take for granted and the basics of how the economy works which in fantasy it's pretty easy since magic happens mostly in the margins and not in daily life which tech would dominate the daily lives of even the poorest people in a sci-fi setting. There's often just a bigger gap between player knowledge and character knowledge that can be hard to bridge.

For getting campaigns off the grounds what often words is a"highway." Start everything off as a railroad with a nice clearly-marked plotline and then let them take an exit anytime they want. Basically set up a railroad with the intent to derail it by simply doing nothing if the players start to wander off the tracks. Gives players something to grab onto in the beginning and then the freedom to reject it when they see something they want better. But usually players have to SEE something they want better so giving them something to do until that point can be helpful.

Quote from: Daztur;921528For getting campaigns off the grounds what often words is a"highway." Start everything off as a railroad with a nice clearly-marked plotline and then let them take an exit anytime they want. Basically set up a railroad with the intent to derail it by simply doing nothing if the players start to wander off the tracks. Gives players something to grab onto in the beginning and then the freedom to reject it when they see something they want better. But usually players have to SEE something they want better so giving them something to do until that point can be helpful.

I think that's good advice, and resembles the "tentpole megadungeon" concept - provide a default activity, but don't constrain the players from doing whatever else they want to do.
I guess Traveller has being a 'free trader' as its default activity, and that is ok if the GM puts work into bringing worlds & NPCs to life; it can act as springboard for a sandbox. The alternative is the very very common "linear series of adventures" model where the GM tells the group what they're doing each week - can work ok for mission-based themes but I tend to find it unsatisfying if that's all that ever happens.