The Forge Archives

Hello everybody!

After a crazy year, I'm back (trying) making roleplaying games once more.

The post "Dawn of the Magi" and the article "Fantasy Heartbreakers" by Ron make me wonder about Fantasy Games. I always loved Fantasy and I will always love it! But I have to face it: can I make something really original that will be High end Fantasy?!?! Is it really possible?!?!

What's define "Fantasy"?!?! Magic, swords, Goblins, Knights, anything else?!?!

What about a fantasy game with only one...race?!?! Human...only human!!! Something in the line of "The Black Company" by Glen Cook. Is it something that you would like to play or is it too dull to have only one race in a fantasy game?!?!

And what about Dwarfs and Elfs!!! Is it possible to be original with these?!!? You know... changing the standard!! The Old race is Human and the new blood are the Dwarfs and the Elfs.

Just some thoughts about Fantasy!

Patrick

How about goblins as an oppressed, slave race and humanity as the villainous slave drivers?

- Alan

Well this is all very IMO but I'll take a stab.

I would LOVE to see a game where all the races are human (Slaine comes close as a fantasy game in this regard).  To a large extent the "differences" between races in fantasy games are proxies for human "races" to include issues that the designers didn't have the balls to to put in print.  You can say things about Humans, Orcs, and Half-Orcs, or Elves vs Dwarves that you couldn't say about human cultures without having the sentiment being rightly labeled racism.  A game where the races were clearly human and not fantasy proxies would force the designer to treat such issues in a mature manner rather than just assume its ok to treat half orcs as second class citizens because they're half orcs.

As far as traditional fantasy races I have a somewhat unique opinion on this matter myself.  If they are going to be included, I want them to be recognizeably "standard".  I don't WANT dwarves who look like dwarves but are really something else entirely.  Ditto with the other fantasy races.  Sometimes an interesting twist is interesting.  Like is Sovereign Stone where a minor tradition regarding Dwarves and Horses is turned on its head by making Dwarves mongol-esque horsemen...but despite this minor tweak...they're still recognizeable as "dwarf".

Edit:  Yeah, Alan, that's exactly the kind of thing I like.  Putting a new twist on a recognizeable "race"...not to make it different, but just a different perspective.


Further I really detest "new races".  The whole idea of "I want other races in my game but I don't want the same old fantasy races" is IMO utterly absurd.  It takes as a starting assumption 2 things.  1) That a fantasy game NEEDS racial variety in order to be interesting, and 2) that somehow the current author can create a race that is more compelling than one which has decades of treatment behind it.  The first one is just plain not true, and the second is false far more often than it isn't.  

IMO fantasy races are not interesting.  They are "kewl" in the juvenile appreciation sense of the world.  I find them to be an inadequate substitute for true creativity.  Very few have anything approaching a reasonable biology or culture.  Mostly the "We have over a dozen playable races" type game really means we have a bizarre illustration to which we've tacked on attribute modifiers, listed 2 paragraphs of heinously stereotyped and utterly ridiculous "racial features" and called it "playable".  Blech.

"hey over here I have cat people, and over here are land squids...thats why my game is better than D&D.  D&D just has boring elves and dwarves and stupid halflings but I have land squids.  Oh yeah and you can play half dragons and titans too.  The +18 Strength Titans have is balanced out by their difficulty in passing through doors.  And over there are dog people and they hate the cat people...you know because they're dogs.  And we also have rat people...they're really good theives and they live in sewers.  There are also crocodile people and tree people, and bird people.  And oh, I almost forgot, in my game you can play intellegent giant snails.  Yeah...thats what makes my game so cool"

Ye gods how I hate and despise that.

Patrick - and I am only saying that because I care - there's a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing.

I would agree with the concepts behind your post, Valimer, but I would disagree with some of it's implied aplication.  Much of what you have to say seems to rely on the theory that High Fantasy is a premise in itself.  Their are several fantasy universes that use alternate races from the contemporary fantasy ones that still are a value to the RPG community.  Final Fantasy is a living testimony to this, as well as pokemon.  While they may not be great examples, they rely on a different premise and the use of different races is neccecary sometimes to the plot.   Think about the applications of new races.  IF, they service to facilitate gamplay under a different premise.  Tolkein's universe used races for a single thing each.  Hobbits=innocence  Elves=masters or future or beauty  Wizards=Divinity Humans=Humans with a twist on the need to evolve beyond human nature; Dwarves= Greed, ect.

Now if you believe that these races cannot be improved upon, you can believe that.  But if you condemn all other fantastic race creation you are trulley limiting yourself.

However, there are some parts that I would agree with.  I don't think that you should create new races so that you can have a new RPG.  New races should be added where they're needed, not elsewhere.  I also agree with your belief that turning animals into races, giving them stats, and calling them uniqe is absurd.  However, if such race types have application, such as in a gamist RPG or simulationist RPG that is about the use of human culture through other races, then it could be used.

Sure, fantasy still has room to grow, its just that folks are confused about what is growth, originality or innovation.  New races, new spells and gods don't make a different fantasy.  

Compare Conan, Elric, the Dark Crystal and Where the Wild Things Are.  Each is a form of fantasy in its own right, but how it all comes together is very different, and its more fundamental than races, spells and gods..

In terms of games, most people work backwards with designing setting.  Instead of thinking, "I want a dark, primal world" and building around it, they take D&D and try and push it that direction.  

Even worse, folks try to get a different style of play with mechanics that fundamentally are the same.  Most of these fantasy game mechanics are a result of house rules and fixes to D&D or some other system.  They want to "fix" the core system, but usually don't look at the core problem.

Going into conflict, most folks come back to either a world of adventure without any inherent conflict, or else a "big evil" that is not very different than any of the big evils in a Whitewolf game.

So what's the answer to this?  Don't start with standard fantasy.  Kill all assumptions.  Figure out what is the mood, the essence of the setting.  What is the style of gameplay about?  Start from scratch.  If you need more classes, more races, more spells or more gods to make it interesting, then it just isn't.

Nonstandard fantasy games you may wish to check out-Donjon, the Riddle of Steel, Elfs, Draconic, Otherkind, Paladin, Zenobia, Alyria, & Trollbabe.  That's a pretty big list, so we're nowhere near done exhausting the fantasy area, its just a lot of people haven't looked beyond anything with a license.

Chris

QuoteThe post "Dawn of the Magi" and the article "Fantasy Heartbreakers" by Ron make me wonder about Fantasy Games. I always loved Fantasy and I will always love it! But I have to face it: can I make something really original that will be High end Fantasy?!?! Is it really possible?!?!

Fisrt off Patrick I think you can make make something original. I'll be the last person to say that everything has been done. Until we run out of having imaginations there will still be something left to do.

QuoteWhat's define "Fantasy"?!?! Magic, swords, Goblins, Knights, anything else?!?!

For me all games are "Fantasy". It's the type of fantasy that you need to decide on. Will it be a sword and sorcery, or just a sword or sorcery? Will it be a hard sci-fi or a space opera, horror or supernatural, or a large/small combination of all of the above?

QuoteWhat about a fantasy game with only one...race?!?! Human...only human!!! Something in the line of "The Black Company" by Glen Cook. Is it something that you would like to play or is it too dull to have only one race in a fantasy game?!?!

doubt it would be dull. What would these humans be like? What is their environment be like? The setting would tell you if it's boring or not.

QuoteAnd what about Dwarfs and Elfs!!! Is it possible to be original with these?!!? You know... changing the standard!! The Old race is Human and the new blood are the Dwarfs and the Elfs.

Of course you can make them new and original! There is nothing that says you can't make them unique and different from what everyone believes is the norm. The reason I used different races for Dawn of the Magi was that it did not fit in with possible future plans. I even considered not having humans in it at all but I decided it would be good to have them as it would give people a something they could relate to easily. If you have a new twist or a new idea go for it. I'd quite happily back you up on it.

Jason

hi, Valamir, I thought I would comment about two things you said:

Quote from: Valamir
I would LOVE to see a game where all the races are human (Slaine comes close as a fantasy game in this regard).  To a large extent the "differences" between races in fantasy games are proxies for human "races" to include issues that the designers didn't have the balls to to put in print.  You can say things about Humans, Orcs, and Half-Orcs, or Elves vs Dwarves that you couldn't say about human cultures without having the sentiment being rightly labeled racism.  A game where the races were clearly human and not fantasy proxies would force the designer to treat such issues in a mature manner rather than just assume its ok to treat half orcs as second class citizens because they're half orcs.

and later...

Quote from: Valamir
Further I really detest "new races".  The whole idea of "I want other races in my game but I don't want the same old fantasy races" is IMO utterly absurd.  It takes as a starting assumption 2 things.  1) That a fantasy game NEEDS racial variety in order to be interesting, and 2) that somehow the current author can create a race that is more compelling than one which has decades of treatment behind it.  The first one is just plain not true, and the second is false far more often than it isn't.  

I think I would only agree partially with either of those statements, with large provisos. there are several kinds of fantastic literature, of course, and generally only high fantasy or the derivative "RPG fantasy" subgenres deal with elves, dwarves and the like. for those specific subgenres, I would agree with your second point, for reasons I will explain in a bit... but the important point is that it contradicts your first point, except in the case of immature writers: the reasons why people use elves and dwarves in high fantasy have nothing to do with describing racial issues in veiled terms. rather, immature writers inject racial issues as a layer of interpretation in their high fantasy -- thus proving that they don't understand why elves and dwarves are used in high fantasy.

... and if someone is not writing high fantasy (or a derivative of it,) then they should not use elves and dwarves, but should instead create original creatures.

to explain this, I need to define my terms. a lot of this comes from lit crit essays and college classes I took on fantastic literature (yes, I took classes on fantasy lit in college; I do not advise anyone else to do this, but that's for another post...) I've mixed in some of my own categorization ideas as well.

fiction can be divided up into four general settings:

[*]historical: the "realistic" past, based on consensus
[*]contemporary: the "realistic" present, as we believe it to be
[*]speculative: the future or an unknown location as it probably is/will be
[*]fantastic: "all the rest"; times and places that are not probable and may not even be possible[/list:u]

you can actually combine historical and contemporary, since any "contemporary" novel will eventually become historical, to later generations. I list them seperately, however, so that the divisions are clearer. also, the distinction between "hardcore speculative" (highly probable) and "extreme fantastic" (almost certainly impossible) settings is clear, but other forms of the speculative and the fantastic can sometimes appear fuzzy: is a somewhat probable futuristic setting speculative, or fantastic?

there are also the genres of literature. each genre that occurs in the broader setting of contemporary/historical or speculative can also have fantastic equivalents, plus there are purely fantastic genres and "crossover" genres.

high fantasy is a purely fantastic genre that deals with the archetypes of myth, legend, and fairy tale. some versions of high fantasy read like fairy tales, others like epics, still others like myths. they use the motifs many of us are familiar with, rather than personal visions of the author; the less familiar the motifs are, the farther the story is from high fantasy. Tolkein is usually cited as high fantasy, as are C. S. Lewis, E. R. Eddison, Lord Dunsany, and George MacDonald. Eddison and Tolkein are usually subclassed as epic/heroic fantasy, as opposed to Lewis, MacDonald, and Dunsany who are more fairy-tale-like in their stories.

what I like to call "rpg fantasy" is a heroic fantasy clone, using the motifs of that genre combined with the cliches developed from years of gaming. it rarely returns to the original source material (myths and fairytales); when it does, it tries to shoehorn the motifs into the cliches of gaming ("we'll make spriggans into a fantasy race like elves!")

swords and sorcery, dark fantasy, fantastic horror, occult fiction, weird tales, and the like diverge from high fantasy and tend to be more original, more personal in their visions. you can get an idea of how different swords and sorcery is from high/heroic/rpg fantasy from Ron's essay in "Sorcerer & Sword". the other fantastic genres will have a similar divergent feel; with the possible exception of occult fiction, the genres don't draw upon the body of collective myth except occasionally, nor do they feel like the well-worn stories of old; they speak with the voice of a modern author, not the distant past.

the point of all this? elves and dwarves are actual motifs/archetypes from ancient stories. we accept some original twists to them and may even put up with an allegorical racial reinterpretation, but they primarily draw their power from a huge body of human folklore; change too much and you lose that power. this is ok if you don't mislead your readers with an otherwise high fantasy feel.

likewise, if you are trying to write a high fantasy or heroic fantasy story, you can get away with inserting an original "race" if it has a feel reminescent of fairy tale creatures or mythic creatures (as Tolkein did with hobbits.) if you insert an exotic race, however, you've broken the mood; the reader expects something from the collective unconsciousness, not from your unconsciousness. things like insect warriors or lizardmen come more from swords and sorcery, weird tales, and science fantasy than from ancient legend.

I find myself nodding in agreement with Val.

One of the main reasons, in fact, I just sort of shrugged about "Dawn of the Magi" was the list of a dozen different races. I thought, as I do about similar work (such as the various D20 supplements containing new races), what's the point of all this? Seems messy and crowded. Overall the idea was uncompelling to me.

Simply, I read through it and found nothing that really made me say, "OH! Wow..." (with a few minor exceptions here and there).
What I saw was "insect guys, tree guys, lizard guys, cat guys, etc."

Now look at "Exalted." One might argue it is in the Sword & Sorcery genre, but IMO this is solid fantasy, even though it has no other races but humans...or wait, does it?

What about the Fae Courts on the edges of reality, ie: Elves.

But they aren't just "Elves" or rather, typical fantasy elves who are nothing more than humans with pointy-ears. Even Tolkien's elves weren't simply a biologically seperate species, they don't come off as men with pointy ears -- though his imitators, particularly the standard D&D and clones, end up treating them in such a fashion that this is exactly what they feel like.

They have this unique presence and feel about that which goes hand-in-hand with the idea behind them.

Opposite this is the idea that having a different biology/culture/philosophy somehow makes for an interesting race is broken on a fundamental level. As Valamir states, it is like having a funky illustration and some stats to go with it...you will not capture the feel of a different race with such an idea, nor will one based on such have any compelling presence to it.

Take a look at Tolkien's races overall: each is drawn from an extensive ancient European mythos, but molded in a fashion that their overall existance and history in the world of Middle-Earth is unique and compelling in and of itself, beyond the mere biology, appearance or culture/philosophy of the race.

Their existance is mythic, in a sense. Tolkien elves aren't just immortal/long-lived, pointy-eared nature-lovers who like magic and forests alot (ala D&D)...there's a compelling history and culture about them that persists in Tolkien's world, something otherwise missing from D&D et al.

You could easily change the appearance and biology of Tolkien's elves entirely and they would not lose their identity. This is untrue in standard fantasy clones.

Frex, "they live in cities and they like to gamble alot, and they have no hair!" Standard D&D elves...cripes, we're talking a seperate species.  Tolkien elves...not so easy to make them un-elves with such a change.

Ask yourself this: "Can humans 'get by' in that role?" If the answer, even remotely, is yes, then why create a seperate race? (ala: a race of savage mercenaries!)  If the answer is 'no', then you've found the idea for an actually compelling non-human race.

Quote from: greyormAsk yourself this: "Can humans 'get by' in that role?" If the answer, even remotely, is yes, then why create a seperate race? (ala: a race of savage mercenaries!)  If the answer is 'no', then you've found the idea for an actually compelling non-human race.

Is there ANY role at all a human can't 'get by' in?
Humans have had the darkest of hearts, and the kindest. Humans have been more greedy and self-serving than imaginable, and yet have also been the most selfless and giving imaginable.

Unless you're talking strictly about physical situations, like a vacuum or underwater. But that end just being humans-with-gills or humans-that-can-survive-in-space-with-out-a-space-suit-and-all-those-nifty-gadgets.

I myself am of the view that something should be created just for the sake of it. Even if it's just a human-with-pointy-ears. "Because I want to" is a good enough answer to any questions of "Why?" for me.
it's not High Philosophy ;)

Greyorm, Talysman et al,

For the first time in long time I have the desire to play High Fantasy, though I've always considered myself a fan of Low Fantasy.  But reading about the failings you've given here has definitely rekindled my interest in a High Fantasy system.

Can you maintain the mythic nature of species and keep them playable?
Can the mythic nature of dwarves, elves and trolls be kept?

It seems to me Tolkien relies largely on mystery and a deliberate distance to his elves to keep the feel, if I played an elf I would lose the mystery and distance.

Similarly, what about other motiffs, the noble quest will succeed because of the courage of central figure, can this work in a game setting?

Is the most common RP setting the least adaptable to RP?

Jeremy

Quote from: Patrick BoutinBut I have to face it: can I make something really original that will be High end Fantasy?!?! Is it really possible?!?!

What's define "Fantasy"?!?! Magic, swords, Goblins, Knights, anything else?!?!

Looking at the huge body of fantasy literature that is available, going all the way back to real-world ancient mythologies, there is a vast
landscape of fantasy fiction of which only a small proportion has been
explored in roleplaying games.

How about a roleplaying game based on a re-imagined version of the
Narnia stories by C.S. Lewiss? How would a roleplaying game in which all the PCs are human children work? What's realy important in the Narnia stories, and how would you implement a rules system to model it?

How about crossovers between different works of fantasy literature, or historical mythology? Re-write the Arthurian legends in an Aztec
setting with shamanic magic. Why this discussion thread is obsessing about elves and dwarves is beyond me.


Simon Hibbs

Actually Simon the original post did specify High Fantasy...which while certainly varied itself, is generally concerned with those Tolkein-esque tropes.

One of the key reasons I have trouble with "new races" is simply that Tolkein's races were inspired by 100s of years of existing myth.  Ideas that he then spent decades researching, musing about, conceptualizing, etc. until these ideas were published in 1000+ pages of novels and assorted works.  Entire cultures, entire languages, entire histories and legends of their own.  This is why these races seem so real and compelling to us.  Because there is a tremendous mass of material behind them.  The elves seem mysterious in the books, because we are only given glimpses of them, but those glimpses are enough to realize that like the proverbial iceberg there is a completeness to them that we don't necessarily need to see to know its there.

Can any aspiring fantasy RPG writer really honestly believe they can capture anything approaching that in a couple of paragraphs...or even a couple of pages of race descriptions...

The reason why the traditional races work (even if awkwardly) is because we know that back behind them all they are all inspired by Tolkein and Tolkein is vast.  This is why we can accept 4 or 5 paragraphs of description in the players handbook on what an elf is like or what a dwarf is like.  Because subconciously we fill in the other 1000 pages from our familiarity (meticulous obsession, or casual acquaintance) with Tolkien.  We only need a couple of paragraphs to know what humans "are like" because we have all of human history to draw from.  Same with the traditional races...we have all of Tolkien history to draw from.

Get away from the unholy trinity of elf, dwarf, and hobbit and there is no depth of broadly understood background to draw from.  That means one of two things.  Either the creator of the "new race" is going to have to develop all of that themselves (something better done with a novel than an RPG game) or else the race is going to feel like a hollow "man in a rubber suit" whose most important features are what kind of attribute modifiers you get from calling yourself a Kalhaxian Fire Imp.

Originally, in literary criticism, the term "high fantasy" was simply another term for "epic fantasy".  A high fantasy was about conflicts that shake the fabric of the fantasy world (LOTR, Stormbringer).  In low fantasy, the conflicts are more local and more human (REH's Conan being the best example).

LOTR is high fantasy because Sauron is an evil fundimental to the creation of Middle Earth, and the whole of society is engaged in the fight.  The presence of elves and dwarves is unnecessary to the definition.


- Alan

True, those things have been added by association rather than being part of the definition.  Based on the initial post though, I think its clear that Patrick was using the definition + associations which is why I directed my comments in that direction.