When a setting becomes too original and wacky it gets boring. There might be parts of it which are wacky and very original but if the setting in general is too different from the typical medieval fantasy setting I lose interest. I feel like the majority of people are like this. I don’t like the newer DnD version because they have all these odd playable races for example. If they kept it to humans, elves, dwarves and halflings I would like it more. What do you think /tg/? Is originality always good or does a good setting need a foundation grounded in typical medieval fantasy?
Yes, and?
>"originality"
I haven't seen anything original in my entire life. What we humans create are always derived from something else, whether in service to it or a corruption of it. All of our inventions? Derived from the study of nature and physics. All of our legends? Derived from modifications and exaggerations of true tales.
>"fantasy"
Fantasy is the activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable, so it's very limiting to stick with only one mode of thought, and the lines which separate each "medieval" fantasy become blurred to the point where people are indifferent, due to the ubiquity of such styles of fantasy. "Being too different from what I'm used to" as a reason for losing investment is very juvenile, but yes, that seems to be a common sentiment in spite of fantasy's rich and vast potential.
>""good" setting"
What a good setting needs is internal consistency. That doesn't guarantee the setting will be good, but it is the base required component. What makes me lose interest in a game or story is when important factors critical to the world are contradicted arbitrarily, and when factors are just thrown in a "kitchen sink" without any regards to how those factors would actually live, thrive, and evolve around each other. Both of those things are the main reasons why I don't play D&D.
Maybe I should have elaborated but when I mean originality I mean that it’s original compared to the kind of settings that dominate at that moment. On /tg/ there seems to be the idea that the more original a setting is the better it is and I don’t agree with that from my own personal experience. Generally original settings seem aimless and inconsistent.
Ideas are real things that exist separate of ourselves. They can be caught like fish. What a load of drivel you have spouted and in such a way as to try to sound clever and authoritative. You are wrong about so much. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Piss off, Plato.
Tell us where and why the bad Anon was wrong, then.
>kitchen
Kitchens are conventionally used to prepare family meals, store food and organise utensils and crockery. You should always keep your kitchen clean. Wash worktops and utensils before and after using them. Wipe up any spills immediately.
Originality (in all areas of an rpg) is only worth if it has meaningful gameplay implications. It's always better to roll with a generic fantasy setting if none of your "original" ideas change anything in the general gameplay loop.
What is your gauge of too original and wacky?
Say for example Eberron where does this lie on the scale at the extreme end, somewhere in the middle?
I remember Tim Schafer made this comment about the making of Brutal Legend.
>You can't make a joke setting and expect it to be funny. You can't make a story about the poop people on poop planet, people won't care. It's very hard to make comedy games as a result. You have to make a setting that has it's own history where serious things happened in order to ground it, and then make jokes in.
People need to be able to relate to something to care, and only when you care are you invested in a story. Like in Elder Scrolls, a lot of people really like the weird out there stuff in the setting, but personally that stuff loses me in the thickets when it's the focus. I prefer the grounded human focus you tend to see in low-fantasy, where the primary agents of the plot are petty human politics rather than arcane rituals of gods and the fabric of reality.
Tim Schafer was wrong and Terry Pratchett proved it before he was born. Discworld isn't all laughs, but every aspect of it, and I mean every single one, has a joke in it. It maybe the funniest world ever conceived, and it works on every level. How curious that Tim also lost his steam sometime after Brütal Legend, and Psychonauts 2 wasn't nearly as funny as his early works.
If I can relate to it, in what way is it fantastic?
>if the setting in general is too different from the typical medieval fantasy setting I lose interest
Figures you are a D&D player. Aside from freakshit races in newer D&D its the most generic trash on the market.
>When a setting becomes too original and wacky it gets boring
We need a name for this fallacy of "If X is too Y, then it is no longer X". This shit's moronic and blatantly, provably false.
>if the setting in general is too different from the typical medieval fantasy setting I lose interest.
Then you're boring and lack creativity and just want to shovel the same soulless gray garbage from Tolkein down your gullet.
>I feel like the majority of people are like this.
You would be wrong.
>I don’t like the newer DnD version because they have all these odd playable races for example
Which shows you haven't played anything other than 5e and are pretending to be an oldgay because Gaygag let his players play literally anything including shit like LITERAL DRAGONS.
>If they kept it to humans, elves, dwarves and halflings I would like it more.
Run your own game and limit the race options then dumbass.
>Is originality always good or does a good setting need a foundation grounded in typical medieval fantasy?
I'd kill for a system that bucks literally all the cancerous, samey garbage that has been perpetuated by D&D over the past 40 years or so. We need originality, not this stupid "Human/Elf/Dwarf/Halfling" hobbit shit. The genre has stagnated because of people like you. I say burn it to the ground and start over.
>I feel like the majority of people are like this
But, at the same time, I bet you view yourself as a unique individual cut from a different cloth than the common man.
I don't mind original if it's actually well-thought-out. Most custom settings just tack on more and more races which end up just being humans with a funny hat on. Non-human races should be almost alien or else it's not worth having them.
Too "original"?
For me it's an all or nothing situation. Either have elves and orcs and dwarves and leave it at that or go full fricking nuts and populate your world with sentient clothing driving around skeleton piles that can shape into different shapes as their bones rearrange. I'm sick of ELVES BUT PURPLE just give me something actually new or do something tried and true.
>if the setting in general is too different from the typical medieval fantasy setting I lose interest
That sounds like a (You) problem