Strangers from distant boards, elegan/tg/entlemen of old....we are gathered here to discuss the great peril of our freetime.
How do we fix the current fantasy genre?
Bring forth the constructive arguments, and may we avoid logical fallacies.
>>45363427
what if we add mechs and tanks?
>>45363427
Fellow councilman, would you please elaborate on what problems you would personally like to see fixed so we can narrow the breadth of the discussion and proceed to make headway.
>>45363825
Interesting
We must orchestrate the destruction of modern anime.
All anime henceforth shall be rip offs of either Lodoss War or Jinroh.
>>45363427
As far as I know the genre is just going a little stale. We should turn our attention to our own. Niche authors and game makers trying to make inspired work.
>>45364053
I seek to hear the grievances of our fellow hobbyists and brainstorm ideas
>>45363427
I think the first step would be to identify what is wrong with it.
So...what's wrong with it?
Why?
A lack of originality on the one hand.
A disconnect with the pulp roots on the other.
As the great Arch-Historians have told us before, history is destined to repeat itself unless we learn from our mistakes. As our fellow councilmen have said, we must figure out the problems that have plagued us in the past and solve them before we can move forward.
>>45363427
treat fantasy race creation more like alien creation.
>>45363427
>How do we fix the current fantasy genre?
1. Stop reading genre fiction.
2. Read literature instead, preferably philosophy.
3. Catharsis.
>>45366464
>implying genre fiction isn't literature
>>45366004
Could this lack of "originality" be attributed to fear of breaking new ground, or love of the familiar?
>>45366518
Genre Fiction:
Plot/Narrative driven
Formulaic
Provides entertainment
Happy/satisfying ending
Straightforward prose
Conventional life/current ideology
Linear narrative that stays in present
Wide range of readers
Easy/fast to write
Characters have quirks/clever dialogue
Focus on exterior life of character
Reader watches plot unfold
Accessible
Climax often big – shootout, love scene
>>45366518
>>45366616
Literary Fiction:
Character arc/Theme/Language driven
Not formulaic
Provides meaning and cultural value
Unhappy/unclear ending
Unique and fresh prose
Darker truths/challenging ideology
Non-linear narrative with flashbacks
Specific readers
Hard/long to write
Real life
Characters are fully fleshed out humans
Focus on interior life of character
Reader infers some of plot
Less accessible
Climax can be small – decision, realization
Good writing
>>45366616
>>45366633
Aren't you using stereotypes?
>>45366616
>>45366633
>implying literature can't have "satisfying" endings, straightforward prose, a linear narrative, be accessible, or provide entertainment(!)
>implying genre fiction can't be driven by character arcs, provide cultural value, contain unclear/unhappy endings, unique or fresh prose, non-linear narratives, flashbacks, or good writing
>>45366742
>Implying it can
Positive representation of women and minorities should be increased and in greater frequency! And a greater mind paid to political correctness and equality!
>>45366799
Ironic shitposting is still shitposting.
All those are genuinely good things.
I motion to make fantasy metal as fuck again instead of plastic looking autismal garbage squeezed out of Blizzard's diseased anus
>>45366799
Another changeling is trying to infiltrate the council.
>>45366757
Listen, I get it. You're proud of the 4 years you spent parroting back the opinions of your pretentious professors. I'm sure you think of them fondly as you flip the burgers, but you're ultimately wrong.
Its a matter of personal taste as far as "satisfaction" goes, and if you think genre fiction doesn't have character arcs, cultural value, contain unclear/unhappy endings, unique or fresh prose, non-linear narratives, flashbacks, or good writing then you're in denial
>>45366834
Indeed, I find the lack of over-sized pauldrons refreshing.
>>45366799
Kill yourself, /pol/. Everyone hates you both.
>>45366834
I hate the overdesigned look everything has nowadays
>>45363427
Play TSR editions.
Problem solved.
>>45366834
>I motion to make fantasy metal as fuck again instead of plastic looking autismal garbage squeezed out of Games Workshop''s diseased anus
FTFY
>>45366823
Apply yourself
>>45366834
Am I the only one who wants to bring back the whimsy and wonder in fantasy?
I feel so disconnected from mainstream fantasy roleplaying because I prefer fairy tales and postmodern magical realism (Borges et alia).
>>45366902
It doesn't matter if genre fiction does it. It doesn't done WELL.
>>45367049
If it does be doing dat did well, does it become literature? Because there are certainly examples of fiction which fit into genres that can be considered literature (The Poetic Edda, The Divine Comedy, perhaps even the Bible). If the criteria for genre fiction demands "low-quality," it seems arbitrary and pointless create a category for it.
>>45367032
Definitely.
Everything is always explained, no mysteries.
Not to mention all the grimness. I understand that grim cultures have grim stories (Norse, Mesopotamian, Aztecs, etc.). But this is an awesome age to live in.
Standard fairy tales didn't have knights and castles because of nostalgia, but because it was right outside the windows of the storytellers. Fantasy was everyday life being intruded on by the paranormal.
Like a suburban neighborhood having a mysterious stranger move into the old house down the way.
>>45367409
I wouldn't even mind if they explained everything, if only they had any writing talent or actual skills in the related fields of knowledge.
People don't care about worldbuilding and they keep rehashing the same thing.
They have to try new stuff
>>45366834
I think for better or worse GoT is responsible for more grounded aesthetics becoming prevalent again from overblown WoW autism. Of course now everything goes too far and everyone is ugly and dirty and has fur on their cloaks with cunty moody expressions, we still can't rediscover that style where everything looks like the album cover to Slayer or Iron Maiden.
>>45367603
But ASoIaF is metal as fuck, anon. First off, it looks like the Iceland crew made the wights directly based off that poster. Second, the setting has some pretty clear nods to Howard's Conan and the relevent sword-and-sorcery fiction. Magic in the setting isn't common, but whenever it is invoked it is fucking brutal.
>>45367459
It's hard to get out of the shadow of Lovecraft, Howard, Gygax, Arneson, and Tolkien. It's not a bad thing, but it's a struggle to not ape them completely.
Lovecraft was inspired by nightmares, gothic horror, and the general progress of science.
Gothic Horror is one of the oldest of the horror genres. It's really the mother of fantasy. Very romantic and it tends to play on both the thrill and the fear of the unknown, and places a great importance on atmosphere. Gothic horror had an almost dreamlike atmosphere. There were a lot of Gothic ruins lying around Britain, and people in the 18th and 19th centuries developed an interest in them because one ruins are always kind of mysterious and melancholy and creepy, two they evoked the time period they were built in, which was thought of as a barbaric time where people believed in (and did) all kinds of weird stuff. For this reason, most early Gothic horror novels were set in that era. They were usually also set in Catholic countries, because the Brits who wrote them considered Catholicism sinister (but also kinda cool).
Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto is considered the first Gothic horror novel. Walpole was a big fan of Shakespeare and said that he borrowed from his idol's plays, particularly Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Ann Radcliffe helped popularize the genre, and authors such as Matthew Lewis, Ludwig Flammenberg, Eliza Parsons, Eleanor Sleath, and Francis Lathom finished out the eighteenth century Gothic horror writers. The beginning of the nineteenth century saw Gothic horror being parodied by authors like Jane Austen, but there were still real examples provided by Lord Byron and Mary Shelley. By the time the Victorian era rolled around Gothic horror was beginning to run out of steam, but there were still quite a few people writing it — in fact, most of the Gothic horror authors and works you've heard of probably come from that era, such as Edgar Allan Poe and the Brontë sisters.
>>45367603
>>45367729
Why not psychedelic aesthetics?
>>45367911
Yes yes. Fantasy and drugs are such a good combination. Bakshi's LotR and Hobbit, Morrowind and all of Michael Kirkbride's work, Earthsea... any other examples?
>>45363427
I think that younger players are not being engaged enough by tabletop games. In my experience, they tend to do one of two things. 1) Play to win. No soul, no real RP, they don't seem to see the point of doing anything that won't gain them XP or loot. 2) Joke around. Now, I'm not against fun, but they don't seem to recognize the value of immersing themselves in a different world. They constantly break character to make silly jokes or references. And as a result, they don't seem to form strong attachments to their own characters or the world around them.
>>45366799
This may have been a shitpost, but I think he's right. As has been stated countless times elsewhere, people not seeing any people that they can identify with is off-putting.
>>45367032
Great point! Magic is not a list of effects and costs in a book, it is wondrous and mysterious! Nor is magic all thunder and lightning, it's also feasts in enchanted glades and wizard's towers with more objects floating than rooted on the ground! Pic related. I particularly enjoy character art without any hint of combat.
>>45368037
What do Bakshi's LotR stuff have to do with drugs?
>>45363427
One does not simply fix the fantasy genre. Tis a vast world of uncountable possibilities and endless boundries. The very ideas you have are a realistic possibility. Not with 10,000 nerds could you do this, it is folly.
>>45368162
Either the Hippies influenced it or the other way around, but LotR was huge with the counterculture of the sexual revolution. There are a ton of references to Tolkein in Led Zeppelin songs, and other decidedly psychedelic contexts.
>>45368037
Isn't there an indie game about China that uses psychedelic/acid-blotter art styles?
I remember that the cover is red and had... a black tree by a river?
>>45368162
Also, Bakshi used a very similar art style for "Heavy Metal," which is so psychedelic and drug-centric that its hard to explain.
>>45363427
Council of Traditional Games, I propose a radical new theory of mine. That theory being "the modern fantasy genre has become cheap, and without logic."
I feel like people who make their own settings are too lazy, or are far too uncreative when designing their new world.
Their only limits are their imaginations, yet, instead of spending hours thinking up new races, new cities, new borders, new religions, and wars, and Gods, they defer to some book, written years ago by someone they don't even know, and they just copy and paste exactly what it says on the cover, and then they turn around and say "Hey, this game is flawed. Someone should really fix X, or someone should really patch up Y."
Fantasy has reached a point where it's become stale and uninspired, and everyone only ever follows some sort of cookie-cutter template because they're hesitant to take risks, no matter how exciting or interesting that risk may be.
I think the thing is that people really like these newer, more bolder fantasy settings that take risks, and people KNOW the fact that other people like these settings.
I mean, if you turn on the TV, Game of Thrones is getting millions of views a month, and I think it's because it's a refreshing concept, whereas big, mainstream fantasy used to be "Good vs. Evil" and "Light vs. Dark", but now it's much more edgy, which I believe the audience deeply appreciates.
Your world doesn't NEED orcs and goblins and cat-people and ghouls. Your world doesn't NEED dice and rules and arbitrary numbers that tell you what you can and can't do.
All you need is a little extra effort to make your NPC's remarkable, and your plots daring; and please, for the love of god, do the fucking research.
Maybe don't make the game too easy. Tell your players your character is just as vulnerable to damage as anybody else he's fighting against. Or maybe make sure that the people they're fighting aren't just brainless mooks that rush in to battle, only to die.
>>45368412
Are you maybe thinking of the wolf with the paintbrush? Okami? That's Japanese, bakka gaijan.
>>45368470
No, it is a tabletop game and was released only a couple years ago.
>>45367881
I feel like while gothic horror drew on classical mythology and folklore for its terrors, cosmic horror drew on the future (which is just as mysterious and terrifying as the hidden things from the past). With the conquest of science & reason over the shadowy beings which haunted the forests, old ruins, and graveyards only to arrive at the edge of the cosmic abyss which would prove just as if not more frightful than the former.
Guys like Tolkien pulled from romance back from the days when "romance" meant "work written in the vernacular". Though they differ wildly in their realism, many of them include fantastical elements. The later ones start to turn into the genre Fantasy, in that they include ideas that were not believed in by the writer or audience not even as possibilities in a far-off land. One thing that distinguished romance from epics was the emphasis on love versus military badasses, the sheer amount of fantastic shit going on compared to most epics, and a bunch of interwoven story arcs vs one story about a big hero.
>>45368454
I just think it's funny that for a genre where anything is possible, people prefer that "possible" consist of guys in not!medieval times stabbing ugly things
>>45366460
Holy shit, yes.
I just spent three FUCKING weeks researching and developing the layout for an "accurate" sentient life form, and it's been the most ridiculous fucking thing of all time.
I asked the nerds over in theoretical biology, I asked the geeks over in astrophysics. I asked my friend, at the University the next state over, who helps design CG models for independent gaming companies.
I asked artists, mathematicians, amateur filmfags, sex ed professors, and a whole SLEW of other shit JUST to develop this stupid fucking race of aliens that I'm only ever going to use for a few games in the near future.
And that's just ONE alien race, and I'm DAMN proud I spent all this motherfucking time on it. I'm proud I didn't just bitch over and say "Lol, cat peepul, because cat peepul are poplar kay?"
It also gave me a huge amount of respect for my settings and shit, and I feel all that second-hand knowledge I absorbed really helped me as both a writer, and as DM.
I do a lot of MUH REALISM shit now, just because all that intense research gave me so much fucking ammo to work with, and its really started to show in my work.
Shit, man. This applies to fantasy stuff too.
Now my elves are more than just "Lel, carbon copy of Legolas". And my NPCs speak in a myriad of different languages and accents.
And I scrap the shit I don't need. Like dwarves, orcs, goblins, whatever. They're all pretty redundant, and I found that they don't really "add" anything to my setting, so instead I scrap a whole bunch of generic races for 2 or 3 really detailed ones.
It's like modifying a car, or customizing a PC. Get rid of the shit you don't need, or the shit that doesn't really "do" anything, and you put in your own parts that perform a million time better.
No need for all this fancy shit when all you really need are some wheels with good mileage, or a computer that can play games.
Also, sorry about my last two posts where I was rambling. This cold is disorienting.
>>45368791
No. I think it might only be available on PDF.
>>45368793
GURPS Space could have been helpful
Not even meeming here, but does anyone else feel like they grew out of WH40K a long time ago because they got sick of all the grimdark shit?
Like, some extremism is alright, but when the entire universe is all retarded because the writers don't know when to pull the brakes, you just seem to kind of...I don't know, mature out of it.
Like I was only ever into it in highschool, when I was an edgy fuck already. But like those other guys in the thread that I'm too lazy to link too, I started going for more realistic, researched shit.
Despite what others say about Meme of Thrones, I think George Martin actually handled his shit really well, and it's easy to see how much time and effort he put into his books.
I want a DM that understands the power behind less is more. Too much fantasy nowadays is overdesigned and polarized. No moderation whatsoever.
So I guess what I'd be looking for would be called Middle Fantasy or something? Maybe Low Middle Fantasy?
>>45369091
40k is supposed to be comically edgy & over the top. You're doing it wrong.
Martin is a hack who bullshitted about his knowledge of the middle ages. GoT is cynical as fuck and not even in the funny way like 40k. His prose is horrifying and his characters are as shallow & unrealistic as it gets.
>>45369091
>>45369224
Third anon here. I enjoy the series, but honestly I enjoyed the Atlas he released a couple years ago more. They again, I'm a history major.
The current issue with fantasy are authors distinguishing themselves from their contemporaries and idols. I am not a ferocious reader of fantasy, so I will use an example that has itched the back of my mind: The Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini.
It was not a great series. Many of the elegan/tg/entlemen of this board will agree. The plot was Star Wars, so much Mr. Paolini made the series a quadrilogy to throw readers off the scent. He went to lengths to specify key contradictions to the story so the Star Wars analogy would not hold up. Meanwhile, Mr. Paolini spents hundreds of pages fleshing out his new-fan-dangled magic system. With the energy he put into fleshing out his magic system, he could've made a good story. Instead, he made a magician's cookbook for his world.
The problem with fiction is not with the genre itself, but the method writers engage with the genre. At least in the Inheritance example, Paolini decided that it was paramount to have a unique magic system instead of unique characters. That is the downfall of how fantasy authors engage with the genre today: there is far more impetus to describe the fantastical world than it is to connect the reader with it. That is something that A Song of Ice and Fire has done well, which is why it has the traction it has today.
>>45369434
If anything, characters and plot are the most overrated things in Western literature.
>>45369434
>Paolini decided that it was paramount to have a unique magic system instead of unique characters
FUCKING
THIS
Sweet Jesus, this
So many are fixated on worldbuilding and making their work "stand out" that they don't realize the characters are what make the story.
>"Well in MY setting magic works by...(insert extensive system nobody gives a shit about and completely kills the sense of wonder by having it explained"
>Well in MY setting there is a race of purple skinned half dinosaurs who speak like Jews and live in pyramids
It almost reminds me of that old japanese guy who said that young animators base their drawings on DRAWINGS and not people/IRL things, or like how light novels have the most bizarre and inhuman dialog because the writers are spergs who don't understand people
>>45369571
>that old Japanese guy
that was Miyazaki, senpai
>>45363427
You know what worked for me? Replace Tolkien-coined words and pseudo-Norse vibe with plain old English words and the sort of fairy tale trappings that the Good Professor despised.
From my settings, I dropped elves, dwarves, uruks, orcs, and halflings and replaced them with fairies, dwarfs, ogres, goblins, and gnomes. Also, no mithril.
This ridiculously simple and tiny change presaged a tonal shift that vastly improved my fantasy for both fiction and gaming.
>>45369586
>>45369502
Elaborate
>>45369571
>or like how light novels have the most bizarre and inhuman dialog because the writers are spergs who don't understand people
Shieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, nigga. This has been eating me alive for the past five years.
Like, damn, son. Fantasy writers, science fiction authors, and especially animu artists are SO fucking clueless when it comes to good dialogue and shit.
It seriously brings into perspective that one saying that goes "If you want something done, do it yourself."
It's why I've been taking up drawing and writing ever since 2016 started, because I'm sick and tired of just standing by, watching people consume inane shit when they can do so much better.
I'm coming for that George Martin son of a bitch, and I'm gonna tap dance on Tolkien's grave when I'm done screwing him over.
>>45369701
>the sort of fairy tale trappings that the Good Professor despised
Could you elaborate more on this?
Judging by the inclusion of Bombadil, and his other works of fantasy (Farmer Giles, etc.), J.R.R. wasn't exactly ideologically opposed to fairy-tale stuff at all.
>>45369701
That tiny change makes it feel distinctly "English" and not so much Anglo-Saxon.
As though instead of clinging to a romantic Germanic tribe it accepts England in its entirety. Celtic, Germanic, and French.
Like those medieval adventure stories from the early 19th century.
Good show
>>45369502
I'm interested in your opinion. Do you have any pieces of fiction that you're basing your opinion on? I'd like some good reading.
>>45369746
Hobbies like this tend to attract autists, it's natural
But when they write it inevitably becomes Chris Chan tier
>>45369714
People these days can't appreciate non-anthropocentric narratives.
>>45369863
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and most of Jorge Luis Borges's short stories.
>>45369879
Are you kidding? Most people care more about plot over characters
>>45369746
I will look forward to your works. I hope that you have the blood, sweat, and tears to make a truly fantastical work.
Older fantasy built upon real life and existing mythologies/cultures.
Current fantasy tries to build upon the fantasy we already have. Add in way too much "different for different's sake" and it's no wonder things kinda suck. I'm also sick and tired of subverting/being self aware of fantasy cliches.
People making settings need to get more well read, and maybe actually go outside once in a while. Not so they can try to be different, but to get the breadth of knowledge needed to understand WHY some elements of fiction work as well as they do.
>>45369746
>I'm gonna tap dance on Tolkien's grave when I'm done screwing him over.
If you're going to attack anybody for their dialogue, Tolkien should be considered an exception. Even a casual reader can tell that the Hobbits speak differently from older characters like Gandalf, Aragorn, and Elrond, who use older vocabulary and syntax in accordance with their ages and stations.
Can we please stop using Tolkien as the whipping-boy for all of fantasy's sins?
>>45369957
>Current fantasy tries to build upon the fantasy we already have
And this is where everyone crashes and burns
When you draw influence from somewhere else it should mutate in some way.
Much like how the Greek Hercules mutated into the Japanese Shukongōshin as time and distance went on.
Or how the deities of the PIE pantheon turned into the Devas, Olympians, Aesir, etc.
You can see the original skeletons clearly, but you can see what makes them distinct from their forefathers.
Varda from LOTR is clearly pulled from Odin in his aspect as starmaker, but at the same time you can see the obvious influence of the Virgin Mary from Tolkien's personal faith. He wanted to reconcile the legends of the pagan northmen with his christian faith.
>I'm also sick and tired of subverting/being self aware of fantasy cliches.
Fantasy cliches have been subverted, deconstructed, reconstructed, averted, inverted, and played in every way imaginable. Nobody wants to step out of their comfort zone. And it's understandable. Many writers understand that "different for the sake of different" can result in a retarded clusterfuck of meaningless and weird shit in a story. And the plebs who eat up cliches will whine if it doesn't turn into another clone. It's a really fine line to walk.
>People making settings need to get more well read
Without a doubt. Most "fantasy writers" and "worldbuilders" only read fantasy.
>actually go outside once in a while
Let's not ask for a miracle here, these guys are very autistic
>Not so they can try to be different, but to get the breadth of knowledge needed to understand WHY some elements of fiction work as well as they do.
Basically
What went wrong?
>>45370408
Taste changes
>>45369924
I don't have much interest in either.
I'm interested in mood and ideas.
>>45370408
Aesthetically?
What the other Anon said and something which bothers me is how every other chap in fantasy is running around in armor fitting a king these days.
Everything is so over designed and impractical with apparently hundreds of hours spent on fitting the character perfectly and looking as fancy as humanly possible while sacrificing practicality over aesthetics. Sure it makes sense for a nobles and high status people in general to wear such garb at social situations, but when you go exploring sewers and just general murderhobo business I wouldn't expect everyone to be clad in boobplate and 50 pound shoulder pads for the purpose of looking good while on the job.
Maybe I just didn't notice it in the old art but I wish things were just a little bit more practical and less overly-stylized
>>45366742
Well as to the 2nd point, I think that was the reason that >>45366464 suggested that writers should read more literature, instead of just sticking to the safe stuff that gets popular.
>>45363427
I would also like to endorse >>45366464's point, and add that I think writers should try to educate themselves more on the real world. Not just history, politics, and things, but I think they should try to become more scientifically literate.
Not so much because I'm worried about "accuracy" but I think there's a distinct difference in the verisimilitude of writing from people that are well educated on the universe, and people who base their fiction on other people's fiction.
>>45370496
I agree that moods and ideas are paramount for the reader's takeaway message. I also agree
>>45369879
That the plot is what compels readers to keep reading. They wish to know how the story ends.
However, I feel that good characters are the backbone to this, at least in the novelization we see today. Not only do they help the reader relate to the plot, they also give great pointers for the content-creator how the plot will be constructed. With well-constructed characters, you can deliver well-constructed plots. With well-constructed plots, you can proliferate the moods and ideas in an effective manner. If you focus too much on plots, in my personal opinion you get mid-tier fiction like the Inheritance series, Dragonlance, and any stories with Elminster. If the focus is set on moods, then I feel you get stories like "The Gem of Argon."
(TL,DR: IMHO characters are the driving force in fiction. They serve as the vehicles for the greater pieces of plot, mood, and whatever PSA-message sent to the reader.)
>>45368070
>2) Joke around. Now, I'm not against fun, but they don't seem to recognize the value of immersing themselves in a different world. They constantly break character to make silly jokes or references.
God, this is so painfully true.
I DM for my younger brothers and their friends, and they WILL NOT SHUT THE FUCK UP.
>Me: You walk into the-
>P1: Walk into the club like, what up I got a big cock!
>P2: *on his phone*
>Laughter from all
>30 seconds of penis jokes
>Me: ANYWAY, you walk into the room, and there's a very dim light. You can see in the middle of the room a small, feminine figure-
>P3: Well helloooooo there. I walk up to her and put my arm around her.
>Me: (continuing, annoyed) that has had its chest torn open.
>P2: *on his phone*
>P4: OH SHIT THERE'S CHESTBURSTERS
>P1: Dude, what if one of us gets raped by the vagina things?
>P5: Don't worry, I'll just punch them.
>P2: Oh dude, did you see the new episode of OPM?
>Half the table starts talking about anime, I talk to the one player paying attention still.
>Me: (desperate to actually play D&D) Alright, there's a trail of blood leading out the room.
>P3: I follow it.
>P2: *still on his phone*
>Rest of table still weebing out
>P3 gets to end of hallway
>P1: Dude, Why'd you split the party?
It's a struggle
>>45368470
>bakka gaijan.
What does this mean?
>>45368793
You should post some of your stuff. I'd be interested to read it.
>>45369434
>Meanwhile, Mr. Paolini spents hundreds of pages fleshing out his new-fan-dangled magic system. With the energy he put into fleshing out his magic system, he could've made a good story. Instead, he made a magician's cookbook for his world.
Isn't the magic system just the same thing as in the EarthSea series?I agree with literally everything else you wrote though
http://tomeofthethayarre.wikia.com/wiki/Thayarre_Gods
I made this. It's a fantasy realm without dwarves, elves, or orcs.
>>45371191
Everyone thinks they did it first
>>45370996
I-It's almost as if the greatest stories take mood, plot, characters, and themes all into account or something
>>45371191
I would not doubt that the system came from elsewhere. I do not know whether or not this is true. Your neckbeard may be longer than mine in that regard.
>>45370408
>that dragon
I absolutely fucking HATE how every motherfucking goddamn dragon is this big bulky brick looking motherfucker. Did you know that dragons were basically snakes originally? They didn't even fucking breathe fire, they just had poison. Now, it's not enough to have a fucking flying fucking snake, you have to have TEH BIGGEST DRAGON POSSIBLE, and you've got idiots like the fucking morons in this reddit thread
>https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/42cbsu/how_big_do_you_like_your_dragons/
Saying that a dragon needs to be planet sized or bigger.
ENOUGH. Enough with the fucking dragons arms race. It's retarded and only serves to distance things even MORE from the audience
>>45371324
I blame video games.
Humans with stone age technology are perfectly capable of killing monsters the size of woolly mammoths.
But apparently that's not good enough for some people. Oh no let's kill planet sized fire demons with pinpricks.
You even see this shit in Tolkien threads. ANCALAGON THE BLACK WAS THE SIZE OF THE ENTIRE TIBETAN PLATEAU!!!
Creatures of stupid size like that were for the gods to kill, if at all. But everybody wants to be Asura now.
The greatest feat I remember a human hero doing was from Hindu lore where one of the pandava bros killed a giant war elephant solo with a club. Well that or Beowulf killing the Dragon. Or Vainamoinen killing the fish.
Either way people weren't casually killing le epic beasts for XP.
>>45371280
Only those words are doing.
>>45371446
U wot?
>>45371446
>>45371119
Stupid foreigner, more or less.
>>45370408
Superior
>>45371545
>>45371551
Natures are already hardware liberated from the worldly voice by pseudo-sonnets.
>>45369777
Well, maybe not so much fairy tales generally as the post-medieval identification of fairies and elves as the same sort of being.
For Tolkien, "elves" were alfr, the Norse equivalent of angels (beings of light who served the gods, badass motherfucking heroes who hang with Thor and murder jotuns all the time), but by Elizabethan times they had "diminished" in stature (literally and figuratively—they both became tiny in the popular imagination and became of less power and importance in folklore) and were identified with house-spirits: hob-goblins, sprites and pixies, the sort of "elves" who would curdle milk and make your shoes or toys.
To Tolkien, this was an adulteration of the original mythology. Yes, it was analogous to what happened to the Celtic Tuatha de Dannan when they also "diminished" over time into the mound-sidhe, and to lots of other folklores that took a backseat to Christianity, but since Norse/Saxon myth was Tolkien's special purview, he took it sort of personally (and patriotically—it was England's deepest lore, after all).
(That's what all that business about Galadriel diminishing and going into the West after refusing the One Ring was all about, BTW. She didn't take the ring for herself to become a Dark Queen and preserve Elvendom on Earth, and so she knew that it would be her fate and that of all her kind to be remembered thousands of years later by humans as tiny fuck-off little pixy-fairies instead of the demi-goddess and -gods they really were.)
>>45371429
I blame videogames because their design limits how they can make big dragon boss enemies.
Usually, especially in MMOs, you need a boss to stay in one place most of the time. So they end up being more the tanky kind that can have a lot of health and soak up a lot of damage. You can't really make a dragon that's fast and slides around, since as cool as that would be, most people don't have the reaction speed for it.
>>45372129
I think you're right about that.
The only slender dragon enemy that springs to mind in any recent videogames is the one in Dark Souls 2, and that game's obviously hard as balls.
Then again, even Monster Hunter doesn't really have any slender dragons, so I don't know.
>>45371793
I do like the dude in the bottom right corner.
How did he not hear the masses of people moaning and dying right outside his window?
>>45370858
Mound that with embroidered history. Indeed a philosopher of spheres, lacking inflowing: a rock.
>>45372294
Should we just form a list of literature that authors should read, in no particular order?
1. Genre fiction (still important, just not the only thing)
2. Philosophy
3. Poetry
4. History
5. Science
>>45372217
Didn't you notice he also has a computer?
>>45372540
Sure.
1. China Miéville, Stanisław Lem, Philip K. Dick, Catherynne M. Valente, Alfred Jarry
2. François Laruelle, Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, Ajita Kesakambali
3. Aleksei Kruchenykh, Lord Alfred Douglas, Louise Glück
>>45363427
As long as you avoid pop-stuff, fantasy genre is OK.
>>45371793
>>45363427
If you wanna use Tolkien's races, make them more interesting than an entire race of Tolkien's most well known characters of those races. His Dwarves weren't all Gimli clones, his Hobbits weren't all Frodo copies, and his Elves weren't all Legolas replicas - who by the way wasn't a lanky faggot in the books but described as tall and muscular - and neither should your be.
And for the love of all that is good, if you're gonna use them, don't do it in an Howardian setting. Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits worked in LotR because it was so heavily based upon and read like mythology. I don't know of any other fantasy writer who actually achieves this, much less any who even try to, but yet they want to use Elves and Dwarves just because.
>>45374053
Even Tolkien did things differently.
Prior to LOTR dwarves & elves were more like nature spirits
>>45374071
Yes, also this. Tolkien didn't straight up copy any previous interpretations of what these names meant but used them to recreate the feeling of a medieval translation. His Elves were actually the Quendi and his Dwarves the Khazad, with no direct relation to Celtic or Norse creatures by the same names other than that some supposed translator long ago thought that they were the terms that shared the most thematic similarities.
Probably for that very reason, Tolkien wrestled quite a bit with what to call his creatures. He considered calling the Quendi Faeries for a while, but was discouraged by one of his friends (possibly because the word faerie already by then held connotation to homosexuality), and for a long time called them Gnomes instead, but eventually decided that it was by then far too associated with short creatures that lived underground for it to work as he wanted it to (though it still lives on as the basis for the word Noldorin), and so eventually settled on the word Elves. However, even that choice he came to regret later on as he believed the associations of that word to have been ruined by Shakespeare.
>>45368793
>Getting rid of dwarves
I respect you, but that don't mean I like you.
>>45363825
Mechs would make more sense in a magical universe wouldn't they?
>tfw mechs wrestleing dragons
an interesting and timely thread
thanks again anons
>>45372193
>Then again, even Monster Hunter doesn't really have any slender dragons, so I don't know.
It does, they're just in the wyvern family. Many of the bulky designs in that series happen because the monster designs are based of real animals and biology.
And that's something I'd like to see more in fantasy. Creatures that function as living beings and not skelletons with skin wrapped around and spikes and other details thrown in to make them look more badass.
>>45363427
add nazis, but make them the good guys
t. /pol/
>>45374932
I certainly prefer it when dragons look like giant snakes or lizards over the cat like bodies you see most of the time in fantasy.
>>45375078
I like Michael Whelan's dragons. He doesn't always get the wings big enough, but the rest of the dragon feels more "right" than just about any other depiction I've seen.
>>45374053
>who by the way wasn't a lanky faggot in the books but described as tall and muscular
Question: where exactly was Legolas actually described in the books?
>>45368264
Have you heard nothing lord OP has said ?
The fantasy genre must be fixed
>>45371793
OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING.
OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY.
We must destroy anime in the flames of Mount Fuji
>>45367315
What I wanna know is where's the caveman?
>>45375458
>He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgul, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship
>The Book of Lost Tales, II, The History of Eriol or Aelfwine, Ballantine Books, 1992, p.333
>>45375593
And I suppose you're the one to do it? I'd rather die before I see traditional games in the hands of a filthy casual!
>>45364915
I second this motion.
>>45375818
Never trust a casual!
>>45369091
I'm tye opposite. I spent a lot of high school trying to take things seriously. I would mull over theology and philosophy for days on my own. Then I find this series about crying HERESY at everything and I never looked back.
>>45369224
I agree with this. I wasn't really that into 40k lore in my teens but as I've grown older I've started to appreciate how silly it is more and more.
GoT on the other hand, I liked for the first book, and then it took a turn for the worse. The second book dragged on forever and didn't go anywhere. The second half of the third book started to pick up more pace, and then it died off again by book four.
I think what really got to me was how obvious it was that Martin didn't understand the scales of what he was describing, and his nasty habit of letting characters go off on long internal monologues about some irrelevant historical anecdote - often so ancient that the characters should logically know nothing about it, and the times that the monologue is triggered by a statue or some other relic the reader is left to wonder how it's still standing there at all.
>>45368793
I've been trying to work on a complex, roughly plausible aliens for my setting, but I've been drawing a blank mostly.
>>45376799
whoops, *on complex
>>45374932
Monsters should definitely be unnatural, but there's something very satisfying about oversized chimeras such as dragons
>>45375827
Do you not understand that while we bicker amongst ourselves, Games Workshop's power grows?! None can escape it! You'll all be destroyed
>>45377984
ASH MINI GIMBATUL
ASH OVERPRICED DARBATULUK
ASH MINI KRIMPATUL
>>45363427
By making it more like the epic ballads it was based on. Or by making the focus on the characters and the story, rather than wish fulfilment and shallow escapism (á la "oh gods I wish I was a wizard in hogwarts rather than at this shitty boring secondary school where I get bullied" instead of "whoa, this place is beautiful and amazing and supernatural; this could never exist in real life"). In fact, the vast majority of problems with "current" fantasy lies with its attempts to appeal to broad readership, rather than trying to just write a good story. Lots of it is basically just shitty follow-the-leader YA fiction.
This will never happen, by the way.
>>45363825
Welcome tothe worst part ofmy setting.
>>45370408
>What went wrong?
Furries.
>>45371793
>superior
>hildebrandts
Pick one.
>>45371102
Solutions:
1) "Hey guys, I know this is a game of pretend, but I think that if you immerse yourself into it, you're going to have a lot more fun."
2) start deducting XP, gold, magic items
3) start hurting the characters
4) start hurting the players
>>45371793
Uh, so who ripped of who?
>>45380752
Bane?
