Figuring out my setting (call it Yggdrasil or something)

[Mike Holmes]

I'll not weep.

I'm going to totally change tactics here. Bring on the setting stuff you have, and ask questions about it. I want to see some of the other stuff. You want feedback on mainstream suitability, and color? I can do that. Others might participate as well.

To start off with, the goblins. Is what you described all you have for color, or is there more coming for them? They need a bit more detail, obviously, before we can even judge them.

Ron's point about triclopses is that they are gaming kitch. Even if there is an awesome manga about them. Designers often do things like splitting off an idea to make it more interesting. This usually fails. Like your lion-centaurs. Players will look at that and say, well that's just a centaur with a lion's body instead of a horse's. And nobody will be impressed. Even if you were to detail them to the nth degree and really interestingly, people will still fixate on the weak way in which you came up with the idea. They will visualize like I do, you sitting there going, "OK, now what would be really Kewl is if I had centaurs, but with bodies that were lions instead of horses. Oh, and instead of cyclopses we'll have a race with three eyes called triclopses!"

Frankly such stuff seems lame. Better to not be creative at all than to just create simple amalgams. And as for including something from a comic, that will seem lamer if reognized. Especially if you change them just enough to prevent you from getting sued by the creators. If you cahnge them more significantly, then why have any resemblance at all. What is three eyes other than Kewl?

If your goal is mainstream, then why have the Ogres you mention? That will be outside of the mainstram recognition, certainly.

Your ghost light spell. Colorful. The best thing we've seen so far. The only problem is that you have just created a very high bar to leap. How many spells do you think it'll take to complete the setting? A problem with such a spell is that it begs for more light spells. How about one that seems like a glowing rainbow over the character's head that makes everyone feel comfortable when bathed in it's light. And another that makes the caster's head glow and gives bonuses to his ability to impress people. I can go on all day. If you only have a few spells that are this well detailed, the list may well seem incomplete.

Why can't PCs be giants? Because they can't in other RPGs?

You mention a mythology. Details? If this is Standard Fantasy, then I assume that players can play preists? Do they get special abilities?

Mike

[contracycle]

The trolls have more in common with the mystics of Dark Crystal than any of the above mentioned settings. And female trolls don't look ugly at all, in fact they look totally human, except for the tail and tufts on their ears.

But of course you're not gonna see that because I haven't explained those things yet. I guess when I said details where different you didn't really think I meant it that way.

No, I certainly did not.  But this begs the question: if it doesn't look or behave like a "standard fantasy" troll, why call it a troll?  Perhaps it would be better to say "this is my world and these are the people in it" than trying to shoehorn it into a standardised set of terms.  In fact, by saying you wanted to be standard fgantasy, a couple of "standard" troll typoes came to mind straight away, none of which seem to match what you are describing.  It may be that trying to be standard actually becomes a communication bloackage with your audience.

[Christoffer Lernö]

At Ron's request I'll try to change my tactics a little.

I was originally going to post some stuff from my design notes which detailed my goals for the game but I'm getting a little worried, because they are MY design notes with a lot of implicit things carried within them. If I say "troll" there's a lot of associations to that word, most of which probably aren't shared by most of the list members (esp since the word "troll" is in swedish and aside from describing all kinds of supernatural creatures from goblins to ogres (they could all be translated to the Swedish word "troll") it is also in words like trolldom (="magic"), fortrollad (="spellbound") and trollkarl (="mage")). Association both helps and hinders, because sometimes an association might ruin appreciation of an otherwise great idea... and sometimes it inspires something beyond the mere description.

That said, I'll still post them, but please keep these things in mind when you read it ok? I gonna keep them short and can elaborate on the details if you don't understand how I mean or think it might be a bad idea.

Design goals/ideas:

System
* Fast, non-obstructive combat system with reasonable results.
* Task resolution should let the players rely on the character's abilities to be consistent.

Setting
* Loosely inspired by norse mythology, both actual mythology and interpretations in comics (like "New Mutants in Asgard") and manga ("Oh my goddess)
* Magic that could rival the power of Gods
* Stupid (and sometimes ugly) giants as nice monsters for the characters to fight
* Demonic magic which corrupts the user
* An asian touch - borrowing inspiration from fantasy as interpreted in Japanese manga (for example "Dragonquest")
* Unarmed fighting just as good as armed fighting (in special cases)
* Very graphic, visual magic (the levitation spell makes you glow, firebolts sparkle like fireworks, the magical prison wall which can absorb magic hold on to their prisoner with a multitude of demonic arms growing out of it and so on)
* Goddess worshiping elder races
* Borrowing names from authentic mythologies to inspire the right feeling of things
* Magical tattooes, runes and bodypainting
* Elder races (dwarves, witchpeople, trolls and so on) all have magical abilities.
* The elf-like race, the witch people take inspiration from native american indians (during the wild west days) and gypsies.
* The magical (elder) races borrow from norse mythology rather than tolkien.

That was a little more than I had written on the paper I have in front of me, but I have it a little spread out. Some things are basic enough to only exist in the first drafts and I don't have those papers here.

Of course here you're not getting the full GNS analysis of the game because I don't need to state the obvious to myself (so it's not in the design stuff). I enjoy a certain type of rpg playing style and my game's gonna reflect that. Since I've played and enjoyed playing with people with very different RPG priorities than myself I want to make it playable from more than one angle, although one will always be more favoured than the other, naturally.
If you want that analysis I can do it. Let me know.

And also let me know what you want to see next. I could let you know how I met my design goals by presenting examples or completed stuff. Or something else. You decide.

[hardcoremoose]

PF,

I have one question for ya' , and it relates to system...

When you resolve an action, who describes the results?

This is exactly what I was trying to get at in my earlier posts, twenty or so posts earlier in this thread.

In the example of play you provided much earlier, you describe a wizard doing some wizardly stuff by drawing sigils in ash, or some such thing.  Is the ritual he uses to be specified by the textual presentation of your setting, or is your game going to suggest these things but leave the actual description of what happens to the players?

Because the latter will, in my opinion, do more to help you achieve your goal (that goal being to convey an emotional response, as if you were looking at a cool picture of a wizard) than the former.  And you can do a lot less work too, by leaving much of the descriptive work up to the players as it becomes necessary during actual play.

This is Authorial Stance.  I honestly don't know how familiar you are with The Forge's terms, but that's what it is.  It's sometimes considered at odds with Simulationist play, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.  I can say more, but I'm interested in hearing your answer first.

- Scott

[Walt Freitag]

In the interest of promoting Mike's plan to examine some setting details and provide feedback on mainstream suitability and color, let me suggest a detail to focus on.

Dragons. You can't get more mainstream than dragons, they're present in norse mythology, they're ubiquitous in the type of fantasy art that the games never seen to quite live up to, and I for one have never been very impressed with the way dragons have been represented in play in any commercial RPG, even (heck, especially) in those that feature "dragon" prominently in their titles.

Pale, does your setting include dragons? If so, are they just part of the "80%" or do you have something special in mind for them? What aspect of their appearance, behavior, powers, or effects their presence has on the world would you emphasize to help your setting capture more of a sense of wonder?

- Walt

[Christoffer Lernö]

To start off with, the goblins. Is what you described all you have for color, or is there more coming for them? They need a bit more detail, obviously, before we can even judge them.

There's a little bit more decided but I'm not going to do a lot of work on them (which probably includes redesigning them partly) before I feel comfortable with them in the game. Maybe they're just too similar to other things to be needed. Since they're not really in my design goals so they can go or stay, to me doesn't really matter. If I can make them fit and then make them interesting enough to exist in my world, then I'll put them in, otherwise I'll leave em out.

Ron's point about triclopses is that they are gaming kitch. Even if there is an awesome manga about them. Designers often do things like splitting off an idea to make it more interesting.

Yeah, I understood Ron's point which is why I felt I could safely say it was really off target. I really, really dislike games where some races are only thinly disguised versions of some cliche monster or race with a new name. Just because I call my catpeople Myfforo doesn't make them less like cat people.

That's also the reason I called my elf-like creatures elves when I presented them, rather than witchpeople - which is the name I've used when I've developed them. I didn't want you to say: "Witchpeople? why don't you call them elves which is what they are?"

So, trust me when I say that the triclops comment is inappropriate. I know the problem, and to my credit I must say that I never, ever (not even in my early days of rpging) made up stuff that way.

(The standard cyclops is a giant with one eye, usually pretty stupid and very strong, the triclops looks like a humans except for their third eye in their forhead (yeah, like the salubri clan in Vampire the Blaha, but they stole it from other mythology. For the record, I'm stealing it from mythology too and not from Vampire) which has magical powers)

As for the "lion-centaurs" you call them, I envion them more like a sphinx with a human upper body, which make for a little different take on it feeling wise. Stories of creatures like this living on other continents were standard fare in early medival days.
Again, it's not my attempt to tweak centaurs and give them a different name. I'm simply adopting an existing package.

Even if you were to detail them to the nth degree and really interestingly, people will still fixate on the weak way in which you came up with the idea. They will visualize like I do, you sitting there going, "OK, now what would be really Kewl is if I had centaurs, but with bodies that were lions instead of horses.

But if that wasn't the way I came up with it, how do you propose that I show that? There has to be a way. I hope pictures will help, and any mention of centaurs should be kept miles away from where these creatures are mentioned (since I don't have any kentaurs in my setting that should be possible)

Frankly such stuff seems lame.

It's one of the lamest of the lame. Which is why I don't do it. But you assumed I did, which means it might be a problem.

And as for including something from a comic, that will seem lamer if reognized.

But if it's a thing of mythology?

If your goal is mainstream, then why have the Ogres you mention? That will be outside of the mainstram recognition, certainly.

That's why I'm hesitating to use them. I want them because I want the GM to be able to produce colorful and different certified bad guys. The problem is that this is not quite standard fantasy. (Although it could be embraced as such if enough play the game)

The point is that I don't want to add stuff that might transform the game into a fantasy sub-genre. For example I had this idea with "the dark" which would be a force making the dead rise, so you had this undead threat to deal with. Some latched on to the idea and went "oh cool, dark fantasy!". I had to disappoint them by saying that I didn't intend to make "the dark" that powerful or influential at all.

Because (I think you hate to hear me keep repeating this) I want to make a mainstream fantasy game (I mean a game which people could think of as an alternative to playing AD&D, Palladium, Rolemaster et al) and Dark Fantasy is just a sub-genre for the people who like that type.

Your ghost light spell. Colorful. The best thing we've seen so far. The only problem is that you have just created a very high bar to leap. How many spells do you think it'll take to complete the setting? A problem with such a spell is that it begs for more light spells.

Oh yes, that's a very important issue, and I've been considering that one for a long time. It's not limited to a magic system like mine, but even in a less colourful system the variations are virtually endless.

Finally I decided on some criteria:

* It should have a distinct visual profile
* It should be useful and flexible
* If there is a similar spell, consider dropping the idea or extend the spell so that it is usable in more than one way
* Go with the best stuff and leave the rest

Why can't PCs be giants? Because they can't in other RPGs?

There is no real reason except for the fact that making adventures for them will be harder. It won't be that much of a problem of offering advice on how to make them into a PC race if the GM wants to run a "bad guy" campaign.

You mention a mythology. Details? If this is Standard Fantasy, then I assume that players can play preists? Do they get special abilities?

To be frank, the actual details of the clergy isn't quite clear as of yet. They won't have any special abilities and there's not gonna be christian style churches. Beyond that the question is a little open. The "current" gods are not the same as the ones who made the world. Their actual involvement in the world is something I've had several different ideas about. But it's gonna be nothing like AD&D clerics. Just because it's standard fantasy doesn't mean it's standard AD&D fantasy. I'll give you more on the mythology later if interested but now I have to rush.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Pale, does your setting include dragons? If so, are they just part of the "80%" or do you have something special in mind for them? What aspect of their appearance, behavior, powers, or effects their presence has on the world would you emphasize to help your setting capture more of a sense of wonder?

Well, I'm afraid that they do are among the remaining 80%. But that doesn't mean they're supposed to be colourless (just for the record, the essential 20% I was talking about were the essentials to get a world to my own personal liking, I don't imply that the other 80% is less important in any way. I just mean I'm much more flexible about that part).

I don't think I'll cover much new ground by telling what I have for the dragons as of yet. Other than that you're not gonna see heroes attack them in hand-to-hand combat like you would in say AD&D.

I like the idea of dragons being able to change shape and stuff like that, so I was gonna have that if they made it into the game. I haven't really done any serious thinking about the dragons as of yet though.

As an alternative to dragons I do have what in Swedish are called "lindormar" for the heroes who insist on killing dragon-like things. A "lindorm" in swedish folklore is a cross between a dragon and a snake and it can spray poisonous vapours. I don't know if there's an english name for this type of beast (can someone help me out here?)

A friend of mine (with strong narrativist preferences like me) had a neat idea for the dragons, but I don't know how well it fits with the setting. If it fits I'm definately considering adding it.

The idea goes something like this if I remember it right:
Dragons look like your basic dragon, but have the ability to shapeshift. When they are young they often walk around in human guise.

However as they grow older they starts to hear the melody of gold and precious stones.  It is very seductive to them, and they grow an urge to collect it to hear its beautiful song. (If I remember right, they only hear it in dragon form, but I might be wrong)
The more gold and precious stones they keep, more addicted they get, and the harder it is for them to change shape. It makes them lazy and want to slumber listening to the sweed lullaby of the golden treasures.
Eventually they don't do much more than to lie there and sleep all day and all night.

The above would seem to indicate that the dragons indeed could be PCs, but that wont fit the gamist premise as even a newbie dragon PC could take out a giant without much trouble. So that's a reason for not going with that idea.

Do you have any ideas yourself you want to share?

[Christoffer Lernö]

In the example of play you provided much earlier, you describe a wizard doing some wizardly stuff by drawing sigils in ash, or some such thing.  Is the ritual he uses to be specified by the textual presentation of your setting, or is your game going to suggest these things but leave the actual description of what happens to the players?

The Death Lantern description was just to explain how a typical spell could work, but it's not far off what I intend for actual spell description in the sense that there are not really any game rules in the description. It has a look and then the GM and the players figure out how it looks like in the world.

Cosmetic changes encouraged, and the reason I'm providing so much description is because my experience is that few players really take the time to customize their spells even if they are allowed to within the game system.

So my spell is providing a theme and an example for the spell variations can and should be worked out between the GM and the player. This is actually essential since I need a flexible way to deal with the varied mechanics of the spells I have.

For a game like AD&D where all effects are described in game terms, multi effect spells rapidly becomes cumbersome, that's part of the reason why spells in AD&D narrowly and neatly confined into specific solutions.

In my case I'm retaining all the detail, but to make that work in practice the GM and the players will take a little more responsibility. Usually this wouldn't work so well with gamists because of the potential for abuse, but with a magic which is easy to protect oneself from I think I've set in motion a chain of consequences which will lead to "abuse" having very little effect on the balance of the setting.

For general task resolution, I do would like GM and players to cooperate narrating events. It all depends on what type of player you have and how familiar the player is with the world. But either player+GM or GM alone decides on the details.
The rules will provide a template, but the GM and player are both encouraged to improvise on beyond the limits of the template.

Have I answered your questions?

[contracycle]

Pale Fire, what precisely is the purpose of your posts?

You have expressed concerns about the coherency of your world, but you appear to reject every suggestion raised.

You request assistance as to what you should do next in terms of filling in the detail, but you also seem dead set on a particular and quite narrow sub-genre of fantasy which you call standard.

You have been asked to demonstrate your system, as this board is of the ostentatious opinion that it is among the most significent issues.  You have so far declined to do so.

Several people have pointed out the potential or actual flaws you are facing, including an article covering this concept in the broad by Ron.  This has not deterred you either.

I have the following suggestion: lets talk about this game again after you have 100 pages of body text to show off.  Frankly, in my first outing in RPG games making, I totally underestimated how hard this would be to do and how long it would take - the fact that a world is in your head means nothing.  Produce 100 pages of body text, or a reasonably complete mechanical system in less, and we then have something to talk about constructively.

[Mike Holmes]

I have to agree with Gareth now.

Your definition of Standard Fantasy, especially has become such a moving target that we cannot continue this discussion until we understand what it means. As an example, you say that standard fantasy should include elves and dwarves because people expect them. Then you throw around terms like Kentaur. Whatinthehellis a Kentaur? In a quarter century of dedicated role-playing and devotion to fantasy and such, I've never heard of a Kentaur. Is that just some alternate spelling for centaur (I honestly thought it was a typo originally). Probably something from AD&D2E which I avoided like the plague.

Let me be a bit more rigorous. You say that standard fantasy is what most mainstream gamers want. More people play D&D than any other RPG, especially if you narrow it to fantasy RPGs. Therefore this sort of fantasy must be the standard. That world is based (loosely) on the Tolkien view of fantasy. You say your game will be based on the Norse version of these things same things. Then how can it then be standard fantasy. To be more precise, you point out that your trolls will have a certain Norse feel to them that is not like the D&D version. How will the mainstream crowd be able to latch on to that?

To make it very simple, you want something that is the same as D&D, but different than D&D. You have to get past this contradiction. Either it will emulate D&D and thus have the (dubious) advanatage of being accessible to many players, or it will be original and improve on standard fantasy.

Which is it?

You say that you are having trouble getting your vision of these races across. This is a huge problem. If you don't have the writing skills to convery your ideas, then how are you going to write a game that conveys your vision to the reader? Art can give a visual description, but you can't convey something like a race's social conventions in art. You must be able to get this across to your audience.

The alternative is to fall back on the known. But if these races were really known to us, or fit our perception of standard fantasy, then we wouldn't have any trouble understanding. Which prooves that you aren't using standard fantasy.

Mike

[Walt Freitag]

I don't think I'll cover much new ground by telling what I have for the dragons as of yet. Other than that you're not gonna see heroes attack them in hand-to-hand combat like you would in say AD&D.

Actually, Pale, that point alone is a very good conceptual start.

I also think your instincts are correct in resisting the proliferation of PC-playable races. (In fact, here's a suggestion: don't allow even PC dwarves or elves. How can a dwarf or elf ever convey the same sense of wonder as they do in novels or films, when instructions for how to create and role-play them are right there in the handbook? If a game in which all PCs are vampires can be popular, surely a fantasy game where all PCs are humans -- and remember that humankind encompasses enormous diversity -- should be possible.)

And I think your hypothesis that promoting a richer feel requires giving up arbitrary balance concerns (thus, as you say, putting more responsibility on players and GMs) is worth pursuing. Dragons too powerful for any PC to combat is fully consistent with that principle. So are elves that are in no way "balanced" on any advantages-disadvantages scale with humans (whether or not they are allowed to be PCs).

This whole question of "is it standard fantasy" feels wrong and counterproductive to me. I think that if there is such a thing as "standard fantasy," it cannot be reduced to lists of what's in and what's out. Dennis McKiernan's point of view fantasy characters are usually Warrows and Pysks, which he invented, but if his novels aren't standard fantasy I don't know what is. It's completely "standard" in fantasy to encounter creatures that are completely unfamiliar! Since your game goals are all about feel, I suggest you apply the principle: if it feels like standard fantasy, it is, and leave it at that.

I agree with Mike and Gareth that you're not going to be able to get much farther (or at least, we're not going to be able to help you get much farther) until you actually start writing the work. On those rare occasions when we manage to coax some specifics out of you, you do appear to have a grasp on, or at least a feel for, the kind of rich color you're aiming for. It's also clear that there's no tangible theory behind it that you can express beyond what you've already said. That means we can only evaluate specifics, which we can only do when they're written down.

- Walt

[Christoffer Lernö]

Please keep in mind that I feel close to crying after losing my 2 1/2 hour post in another thread. If this comes out a little weird.

I have to agree with Gareth now.
Your definition of Standard Fantasy, especially has become such a moving target that we cannot continue this discussion until we understand what it means. As an example, you say that standard fantasy should include elves and dwarves because people expect them.

Hmm... that's not strictly true. You can have standard fantasy without elves and dwarves no problem. If it's moving around it's because I'm mixing three different concepts here. Sorry bout that.

gaaah, and here the message got cut short I spent 20 minutes with. I am really lucky today. :'( :'(

Sum it up:
Tolkien != AD&D but both are standard fantasy. So you can make standard fantasy which is neither tolkien nor AD&D and still come out fine. Then I tried to make examples yadda yadda. And whatever, not that it matters.
Because it's subjective I wanted to hear what YOU felt was standard fantasy so I could throw out things that didn't comply.

*enormously deep sigh*

[contracycle]

Hmm... that's not strictly true. You can have standard fantasy without elves and dwarves no problem. If it's moving around it's because I'm mixing three different concepts here. Sorry bout that.

OK: in bullet points, what are these three concepts?  Pitch it to me.

gaaah, and here the message got cut short I spent 20 minutes with. I am really lucky today. :'( :'(

To be on the safe side, put your text in the clipboard.  Or, sometimes if you go Back in the browser a few steps, the text will still be in the browser.  Then youy can copy and paste into a new post.

Tolkien != AD&D but both are standard fantasy. So you can make standard fantasy which is neither tolkien nor AD&D and still come out fine.

I disagree - D&D is certainly and IMO obviously Tolkienist.  I think it would be fair to say that that is roughly the consensus of this board and many people beyond it, for a variety of historical and literary reasons.

Because it's subjective I wanted to hear what YOU felt was standard fantasy so I could throw out things that didn't comply.

*enormously deep sigh*

OK - I feel that standard fantasy is AD&D - orces 'n elves.
I do not think that this board will be able to provide you with any assistance as regards Standard Fantasy; I would expect that almost everyone here would rather saw off their own leg with a rusty spoon than ever touch Standard Fantasy again (well, that goes for me anyway).

However - we think you have some good ideas.  What we COULD do is try to help you re-conceptualise your own personal vision into a game that will fly.  It is unclear to me whether your interest in Standard Fantasy is a choice because YOU like it or because you think that OTHER people will like it.  Ignore that: go only with what YOU like.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Hmm... that's not strictly true. You can have standard fantasy without elves and dwarves no problem. If it's moving around it's because I'm mixing three different concepts here. Sorry bout that.

OK: in bullet points, what are these three concepts?  Pitch it to me.

Sure. I had it in bullet points but that message got censored by the forum automagically as I already mentioned ;I

* Standard fantasy as in "not in a sub-genre such as Dark Fantasy, Techno-fantasy or other (PREFIX) Fantasy"

* Standard fantasy as in "you won't say, 'now I want to play some fantasy like AD&D' because you already feel like you're playing fantasy". In essence an extension of the above but including games like Earthdawn and similar games which offers peculiar takes on some common fantasy elements. (In earthdawn's case and in my personal opinion: T'skrang/Obsidimen major player races, Adepts, Airships and the Scourge)

* Standard fantasy as in "the basic characteristics of fantasy common to most (but definately not all) settings". Essentially fantasy stripped down to it's most common denominators (i.e. culture/technology/environment based on europe in medival or earlier times, magic exists in one form or the other and I guess some more things).

gaaah, and here the message got cut short I spent 20 minutes with. I am really lucky today. :'( :'(

To be on the safe side, put your text in the clipboard. Or, sometimes if you go Back in the browser a few steps, the text will still be in the browser.  Then youy can copy and paste into a new post.

I should have put it in the clipboard. Only it worked no problem up until today, so I got a little lazy. Usually if I got logged out I could log in and then back up a few steps in the browser to find the text and send it off.

But this time it got screwed up. I'll be very careful in the future. I'm still reeling.

Tolkien != AD&D but both are standard fantasy. So you can make standard fantasy which is neither tolkien nor AD&D and still come out fine.

I disagree - D&D is certainly and IMO obviously Tolkienist.  I think it would be fair to say that that is roughly the consensus of this board and many people beyond it, for a variety of historical and literary reasons.

Oh, I didn't really mean it's not Tolkienist. I just mean they're different despite their overlaps. D&D is a zoo of monsters and do-it-yourself-spells. I just mean that even though D&D spun of in a different direction it was still enough Tolkien to be appealing to the Tolkien-fantasy crowd. So I mean there is some room to maneuver if one wants to stay around this particular area. (Appealing to those who liked Tolkien's take)

(Incidentally Tolkien ought to be considered a spin-off from norse mythology, but is norse mythology standard fantasy? Maybe, maybe not)

OK - I feel that standard fantasy is AD&D - orces 'n elves.
I do not think that this board will be able to provide you with any assistance as regards Standard Fantasy; I would expect that almost everyone here would rather saw off their own leg with a rusty spoon than ever touch Standard Fantasy again (well, that goes for me anyway).

Is it because of the AD&D taint, or what's the problem? It seems the fantasy genre is the only one evoking such strong feelings. Not that it would suprise me if AD&D is to blame mind you ;)

However - we think you have some good ideas.  What we COULD do is try to help you re-conceptualise your own personal vision into a game that will fly.  It is unclear to me whether your interest in Standard Fantasy is a choice because YOU like it or because you think that OTHER people will like it.  Ignore that: go only with what YOU like.

Yes, I do want good advice on how to make this a game that will fly. I'm afraid I've had the habit of going into defensive mode a lot.

As for standard fantasy, I guess we can safely say that it is an unfortunate word for me to have choosen.

I want to go after what captures the essence of Fantasy. First I'm aiming to satisfy myself and after that I'm trying to satisfy others. Myself first because I'm the easiest one to ask, and I'm the one I know who dislike most other fantasy settings the most ;)

Let's get into an example: I had this idea of "ogres" (no the AD&D monster) who are a kind of humanoid beings about human size with differing magical talents and looks. Some look all human, some with animal heads, some can shapeshift and so on. They would fit nicely as bad guys because they could be made to look like pretty much anything and have any powers the GM could think up. I would have liked to have something like that when I GMed fantasy.

Anyway, a neat monster to fight, and a good GM tool. Why not use it? Well because maybe it makes the world feel less fantasy and more of something else.

I try to imagine the same monster in a tolkienesque setting. Would it still be neat or would people say "what the f**k?" (incidentally my spontaneous reaction when I discovered that Rolemaster's main setting had technological artifacts like laser pistols and stuff) and start thinking about some other game to play to live out their inspiration from seeing LotR or reading fantasy novel xxxxxxxxx.

I don't even know if it's ok with me. If I'm drifting into making Inu-Yasha the RPG set in Japan in the 1500s, I'm not working on Ygg the RPG set in a norse myth inspired setting.

It's not that Inu-Yasha the RPG is bad, isn't cool, or can't be fun to play. It's just that it isn't what I set out to do. And if I want to play fantasy I still won't play Inu-Yasha the RPG. I'll play something else instead.

A little like that. It's not that I'm hostile to invention, it's just that I want to be really really careful lest it becomes something else. No matter how good the "something else" could be. I'll do "something else" later, first things first.

[contracycle]

* Standard fantasy as in "not in a sub-genre such as Dark Fantasy, Techno-fantasy or other (PREFIX) Fantasy"

* Standard fantasy as in "you won't say, 'now I want to play some fantasy like AD&D' because you already feel like you're playing fantasy".

* Standard fantasy as in "the basic characteristics of fantasy common to most (but definately not all) settings

Problem - you are telling me what it IS NOT.  What do you intend the game to ACTUALLY BE in order to meet your goals?