What do you understand by "generic fantasy"?
>>43758671
Dungeons and Dragons and its legacy.
pseudo-Tolkien-esque race-kingdoms
Medieval swords and sorcery with elves and dorfs.
I find it a little sad that generic fantasy is even a thing.
>>43758671
>What do you understand by "generic fantasy"?
Tolkien and it's legancy.
>>43758671
shit like this
>>43761674
Europe?
>>43761698
>>43758671
>What do you understand by "generic fantasy"?
"I'm too lazy or dense to properly articulate what I mean, so I'm just going to hang a label on it."
>>43758671
Dungeons & Dragons.
If we had to really boil it down to the syrup, a generic fantasy would be jRPG levels of rolling grasslands, dark lords, orcs, elves, destined hero with sword, maybe some dwarves, and a pseudo-medeval look for towns and castles even if everything is as clean and easy as the 20th century.
There's a thousands ways to spin that to make it good and fun, but that's the rote image for me.
>>43758671
Anything that's set in a pseudo-medieval pseudo-europe that has races that fulfill the elf-human-dwarf-orc templates. Magic being totally unexplained and a nebulous unclear "darkness" come as a bonus.
Pretty much anything that only rips off Tolkien without adding anything to the pot.
>>43758671
Fantasy settings that follow the most common tropes. The main races will include Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Humans and probably a shit-ton of subtypes for no good reasons. Every race (except humans, usually) gets their own patron deity as well as a slew of others covering frequently just a single very obvious realm like war, justice or cruelty.
Technology will be stagnant around a pseudo-medieval (but not actual medieval, that'd require research) period with a bit of magic thrown in that affects fuck-all about daily lives. The general morality and character of whoever is the designated good-guys is that of modern westerner people typically with a very egalitarian outlook.
Not to be confused with generic fantasy with a twist. Actually no, confuse it with that because the twist usually isn't much of a twist either, and probably involving changing elves slightly. Or adding something 'big' that affects basically nothing, like 'my humans are middle-eastern (but really they're not, they just use scimitars and are brown) rather than white' or 'my elves are blue because their blood is copper-based rather than iron'.
The overall effect is a setting that is very familiar and requires little thought about when creating because it's merely a cludge of the most common ideas watered down to have no good defining traits.
Some settings can appear to be generic fantasy until looked at closely though. The Elderscrolls games of Oblivion or Daggerfall would be this, as would Warhammer Fantasy. The Discworld in it's early novels would be this but then it was a direct parody that grew into having a character of it's own.
>>43758671
>What do you understand by "generic fantasy"?
"There is a clear, definitive, distinction between what is good and evil and everything in the world is based around that."
>>43758671
Medieval Fantasy set in a Britain or France-like country, with similar lore and politics.
Elves and dwarves as they appear in Tolkein.
>>43758671
D&D-style adventuring while shamelessly sucking Tolkien's rotting cock
>>43762151
>Elves and dwarves as they appear in Tolkein.
If only.
>>43762077
This.
I also think that the opposite, that is there is no black and white and everybody is morally corrupt has become generic as of late. Game of Thrones did it well but already we're getting derivative shit like joe abercrombie which takes this ethos to a juvenile level.
>>43758671
>magic makes you insane
>orcs are noble savages
>everything is grim and gritty
That's the new generica fantasy for me
>>43761674
>>43761698
Fun fact: Up until a certain point, European maps were drawn with West as the cardinal direction, placing Britain at the top of the map. There's a series of jokes in Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors where they compare a fat woman to a globe, and someone asks "Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?" to which he replies "Oh sir, I did not look so low"
Tolkien filtered through redbox/bluebox D&D. This is early-to-mid 80's so it's pre-ironic-everything.
>>43758671
>Magic is rampant and common, usually replacing 'technology'
>Orcs are either noble savages or bloodthirsty savages or bloodthirsty savages led by a noble savage.
>Elves are prissy and stuck up.
>Dwarves are drunkards, master smiths, and always talk about 'dwarven work'.
>Humans are all-arounders, and the best person at most things is a human. 'Muh potential' or 'Muh ambition' will be brought up a lot.
>One or two 'quirky' races like hobbits.
>One or two 'minion' races like goblins.
>Quirky MacGuffins required to save or destroy the world.
>European castles and villages.
>Everyone wields swords or axes or bows, only cannon fodder or evil people wield spears for some reason.
>Metal armor is common and inexpensive.
>Everyone has a horse.
>All good nations have kings, all evil ones have emperors.
>Knights are the equivalent of police officers.
>There is at least one 'I Can't Believe It's Not Catholicism' church or several generic pantheistic gods based off of the Greek/Norse Gods.
>>43758671
>Trifecta of humans, elfs, and dorfs
>Orcs are the bad guys.
>Lord Darkbad seeks to rule/destroy/fuck the world.
>Large human kingdom that is a mix-n-match of tropes associated with various Western civilizations across several time periods
>Said kingdom is the only one in the immediate area, and it is ruled over from a large metropolitan city that sees foot traffic from all over the world.
>Wizards in robes and pointy hats
>Magic is basically engineering, complete with math and textbooks.
>Go and slay the dragon, heroes!
>The Verbning Noun Inn
>The whole setting looks like Northern France.
>Fighter's Guild, Mage's Guild, Thieves' Guild
Note "generic" isn't synonymous with "bad". What we would consider generic is really just a setting made up of tropes we most commonly see in mainstream fantasy media.
>>43763298
>There is at least one 'I Can't Believe It's Not Catholicism' church
Don't forget that Church will almost inevitably be totally corrupt, with the only clergy members depicted positively being either gormless good Samaritans totally oblivious to the corruption or cynical closet atheists who are aware of the corruption.
