Why is Medieval fantasy the go-to setting for lazily written RPGs?
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Why is Medieval fantasy the go-to setting for lazily written RPGs?
Why is Medieval fantasy the go-to setting for lazily written RPGs?
DMT Has Friends For Me Shirt $21.68 |
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DMT Has Friends For Me Shirt $21.68 |
blame tolkien.
I do. He's responsible for all the Dungeons and Trannies and uninspired knockoffs written by utter hacks like Wheel of Time. It's all slop.
Swords as a symbol mean a lot.
They sell. Just look at all those isekai anime.
It's not medieval at all. D&D and its derivatives are not “fantastic-medieval.” It’s not even “fantastic renaissance” or “fantastic-post-apocalyptic.” It’s “fantastic American history.” It's a game that exalts the American values of self-reliance, ability, and the ruthless accumulation of money.
It is not only non-medieval, it is anti-feudalistic and anti-aristocratic. Creatures with more XP and hit dice rule lower-level ones, from settled barons and goblin kings to wandering bandits and nomads. Level requirements for baronies are at odds with the hereditary gloss added to D&D in nearly every subsequent setting.
Obsession with money-gathering for its own sake that is suggestive of mercantilism or capitalism.
Gygax original pre-publication Greyhawk campaign drew heavily from his own American experience. It took place on a United States map, with Greyhawk at Chicago, and Dyvers at Milwaukee. His buddy Don Kaye’s Greyhawk character, Murlynd, was a gunslinger from Boot Hill.
Most of D&D’s thousands of imitators, in game and fiction, preserve the game’s democratic bones (cash economy, guns for hire, rags to riches stories) while overlaying a medieval-European skin.
Gygaxian levelocracy, where a villager can rise to become a baron or a “Conan type”, is fundamentally incompatible with the European fantasy typified by Lord of the Rings, in which no fellowship can alter the fact that Sam is by birth a servant, Frodo a gentleman, Strider a king, and Gandalf a wizard.
Sublime post. Frick Gygax and frick D&D.
And he's not going to do anything about it, and neither are you. Progression in videogames, specially RPGs, is a well established concept.
You could break it and do a special little project, but it wouldn't be as fun.
>wahhh my bing bing 1 up wahoo job change rpg is actually the gold standard
Why are you here?
The frontier aspect is what the "American" part is. On a frontier a bandit can become a king, it's happened many times and that's why the setting is attractive. Taming the wilds is close to the heart of men and we live in a solved world. The contemporary European man, and increasing numbers of American men spreading from cities outward, balks at this, so numbed to his own agency from centuries of impotence.
Savage, but tru
Imagine a Nietzschean fantasy setting for a moment
>GET UP AND CONQUER THE WORLD
>IMPOSE YOUR WILL ON THE OTHERS
>BUCK BREAK THE SLAVES
>DESTROY THE ELITES; THEY'RE BUGMEN ON YOUR ROAD TO SUPREMACY
>BECOME A SUPERMAN GOD AND RULE THE WORLD
>RULES AND SOCIETAL CUSTOMS ARE USELESS, FORCE YOUR OWN BELIEFS ON OTHERS
But you can't give plebs SOVLful ideas like that, so its just WORSHIP MONEY GOYIM, I guess.
We already had a fantasy setting inspired by Nietzsche. Dragon's Dogma.
Can you give QRD on how it's Neitzschean?
It’s difficult without spoiling the plot. It’s like a series of filters, both in terms of ability, and in morals and ethics, to finally select for one with the willpower to ascend and become supreme. Those who fail then act as filters for the next potential ascendant.
God damn it I uninstalled it because I don't have enough space on my shitter laptop but now I gotta play it just to see if you were bullshitting or not
It will probably not run well on your laptop, that game is quite GPU intensive.
I'm not bullshitting, it's fairly obvious if you actually understand Nietzsche outside of memes.
It's a flawed game, but the influence is undeniable. The whole structure of the fantasy is built around Eternal Recurrence, Will to Power, and Amor Fati.
L O L. I knew fans of that shit were delusional but this is next level
>DESTROY THE ELITES; THEY'RE BUGMEN ON YOUR ROAD TO SUPREMACY
>BECOME A SUPERMAN GOD AND RULE THE WORLD
You literally just described the plot of every Dark Souls game. You always start off as a worthless Hollow peon who has to ascend into an Ubermensch by force, by the end of the game. Granted, there's not much world left to rule by the time you're done with it, especially after 3's Ringed City DLC, so it is what is.
there's a route for that in all of Matsuno's games but Vagrant Story, that one is just a different type of autistic
I've had the same opinion for a long time. The small party of adventurers is more of a cowboy tale than an epic fantasy. Stories of indian massacres read like TPKs caused by player incompetence.
You definitely are up to something.
Medieval only indicates the tech level
Repost:
https://www.blogofholding.com/?p=7182
>reddit spacing
>hating the west
>criticizing capitalism as an evil in itself
anon is not only a redditor, but also a communist.
He doesn’t seem to be criticizing capitalism from a left-wing perspective. Rather an aristocratic or perhaps a Third Way or Conservative Revolutionary one. Read up on Spengler, Conservative Revolutionaries, etc.
He criticizes capitalism for perpetuating greed, which is something that Communists do because they're ignorant of human nature and blame internal, spiritual problems of the human condition on external circumstances, diluting themselves that if a different economic system is implemented then people will stop being evil.
Woah. Good post.
>exalts the American values of self-reliance, .
How is a game that involves heavy team work and co-operation between a ragtag group of strangers a demonstration of self reliance? If anything that's an example of the necessity of having to rely on others for survival.
>ability
How is having "ability" an American value, much less a non-medieval or anti-aristocratic value when feudalism is based on the forced division of labor introduced from the late and collapsing Roman Empire as to create a system where every profession will never be deprived of employment as to prevent citizens from fleeing to other countries and/or providences?
>ruthless accumulation of money
So according to your larp aristocrats didn't ruthlessly acquire land, titles, and other forms of fiscal wealth and merchant republics didn't exist on the Italian peninsula? Do you also believe that all knights were honorable devotees of the state and that some weren't just successful mercenaries granted land and title due to their contribution in war?
>Obsession with money-gathering for its own sake that is suggestive of mercantilism or capitalism.
You seem to not understand the fundamental facet that human beings are prone to greed and selfishness regardless of which economic system is at play. Having titles, land, and feudal contracts did not stop human beings from acting like jerks since we live in a fallen world. In any case your conceptualizations of the medieval era of Europe are that of, funnily enough, a fantasy and you seem frustrated that rpg's do not meet your "perfect ideology" as opposed to how historically accurate they are.
>European fantasy typified by Lord of the Rings, in which no fellowship can alter the fact that Sam is by birth a servant, Frodo a gentleman, Strider a king, and Gandalf a wizard.
You're a secondary who hasn't read LotR or even watched the Jackson films, since Sam becomes Mayor of the shire and in Middle Earth wizards aren't a profession: they're basically angles and messengers of God. In any case your idea that human beings didn't rise above their station in feudal societies is ludicrous, since half of medieval European history consists of military coups between different dynasties and other dynasties getting wiped out by foreign powers and warriors becoming barons due to power vacuums, the major difference being instead of people engaging in "peaceful" protest or boycotts you have peasant revolts and civil wars.
It's very compatible with adventure.
Settlements are far apart
Governments do not have infinite reach or surveillance so a person could veritably disappear from civilization
The world has not been completely mapped or worse, privately owned and paved yet.
Standards of living do not yet include modern conveniences that require constant monetary income and thus staying in one place with a stable job being the only real way to exist
Guns are not ubiquitous yet, so the more heroic melee weapons are still viable
Not everything has been scienced to death yet, so mystery and wonder still exist
Best post ITT by far. Nailed almost all the correct reasons.
Good points. But the same is true of say medieval Indian, Chinese or Aztec-inspired fantasy. Why aren’t these made more often?
Because westerners, for the most part, aren't familiar to these settings.
There are too many Indians making awful spaghetti code shitting up the industry, do you really want an ENTIRE game made by Indians for Indians? As for Chinese fantasy, China's gaming industry isn't big on historical accuracy, and why would you give a shit about anything that happened before Mao if you're a China owned company? As for the Aztecs, we have no records or contact with anything that went on there in the medieval era.
You don’t need historical accuracy or Indians coding it, just the aesthetics. For example the aesthetics of BoF4 is inspired by Imperial China. The actual answer is political correctness/charges of cultural appropriation.
>But the same is true of say medieval Indian, Chinese or Aztec-inspired fantasy. Why aren’t these made more often?
Why do morons always ask this question? Why isn't anything made more often?
How often are RPGs made in the first place? How many RPGs do you even know about? How much does it cost to get your attention about a game? Who made the games and who was the target audience for those RPGs? What inspired them specifically?
Obviously "Medieval" Fantasy is just more popular and accessible. The Fantasy genre (all forms of it, high/low/pulp/etc) evolved from European myths and folklore (heavily a blend of Norse/Germanic/Pagan/Christian). RPG developers found this appealing for the reasons mentioned above (
). Though most comprehensive settings depicted a variety of cultures (often with recognizable real-world inspiration).
Wuxia games exist but they're mostly Chinese MMOs which are shit
Because the world is eurocentric. Modernity where you can even think of RPG systems is eurocentric and will always be such in conception. The faustian man is the birth of everything modern, every modern way at looking at things is euro-inlfuenced.
The adventure practically writes itself among all the castles, dragons, witches and riches. You can't go wrong with it.
And you can go even lazier than that. I've seen some games where you battle through an office environment, going up the corporate ladder. Clearly a product of a diseased brain of a wageslave that can only think of these hyperrelatable settings.
Why is Medieval fantasy to the go-to RPG criticism of lazy hipsters?
Because white people lived it and it was crazier than fiction.
>even in the fantastical realms of D&D there's eurotrash seething over u.s. superiority
Holy based
Why can't we have both sci fi and fantasy mixed together? Its always either a generic tolkien fantasy or typical star wars rip off sci fi.
You need to look into JRPGs more.
RPGS from Japan are pretty diverse honestly. Even the fantasy focused ones feel different from what you typically see at times.
Part 2
FF7? Akira+Berserk
FF6? Industrial revolution
Twewy? Urban fantasy that uses trends well
Skies of Arcadia? Jules Verne in the Sky
SMT/Persona? Sci fi with occulism
Chrono Trigger? You leap through time itself
Resonance of Fate? No swords, just guns, bombs, and fists
Xeno? Mechs, Swords, Epics
This is just scratching the surface.
Dunno if OFF and Deltarune should be there but to give credit, they're different than most wrpgs.
Cross Code is from Germany not Japan
YOU SEE THOSE MECHS!?
YOU CAN CLIMB IT
>or typical star wars rip off sci fi.
But thats explicitly a Space Fantasy
>what is Might and Magic
>what is Pillars of Eternity
>what is Shadowrun
because hot red head babes in armor with red lips.
It is? I haven't seen any other than Darklands and Expeditions: Viking. I suppose Pentiment also counts if we're stretching the definition of RPG a bit.
It isn't. The go-to setting for lazy bottom-of-the-barrel RPGs is science fantasy.
Because Anglos have endlessly romanticized the Middle Ages for some reason, particularly during the Victorian Age, even when it was a time when the Normans made the murder of Englishmen legal for 300 years.
to be honest, I'd rather take a rehashed vibrant fantasy setting than yet another grey concrete dystopian sci-fi/post-apocalyptic wprg
Exactly, I think a big part of why people enjoy medieval games is that inclusion of green plantlife. It's just nice to see and be in nature.
>grey concrete dystopian
>sci-fi/post-apocalyptic
I can tell you haven't played much Xenoblade, haven't you?
yeah but that's basically a fantasy series, with people using swords and magic and shit
Science Fantasy, but whatever. Point is that it has more green than your typical SF stories. It's a post-apocalypse where so much time has passed that nature has reclaimed the ancient technology that the series is built on. Very Miyazaki-esque if you ask me.
If it wasn't console trash, that'd be a good exception to the rule. Star Ocean as well.
>post-apocalypse where so much time has passed that nature has reclaimed
STALKER has a bit of that vibe as well. I enjoyed it.
>STALKER has a bit of that vibe as well
nah, stalker is still grey and grungy as shit in a lot of places, but then again that's just how the soviet union was in general, dirty concrete commie blocs are kind of the norm over there.
It has the greenery coming back in certain places though, it's just not as far along, hence the "bit of that".
as much as you guys complain about it, there aren't even any games that have a true medieval fantasy, tolkienesque-style setting.
there are no games that contain all of the following quintessential races elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.
there are no games that capture these themes which should be common sense to a fantasy story writer as it is present in most epics:
>travel being arduous and isolating.
>nature being ever present and an enemy in itself. The mountain climb, struggle through the forest, the river crossings.
>a sense of sorrow, regret at taking up a quest knowing you may never see what is important to you again.
>the world is losing something it will never have again, and behind the joy of life is a tinge of sadness for those in the know.
old games didn't have the technology for this. in modern games, movement is easy and quick, killing is trivialized and the main core of the game, the art style is not inductive to a dark medieval setting, quests just feel like doing chores for lazy people, game developers now are brainwashed woke drones that our universities pump out that refuse to keep their modern values out of the game.
the only game i've ever played that fits the closest was early runescape when it was made by the gower brothers.
being arduous and isolating.
being ever present and an enemy in itself. The mountain climb, struggle through the forest, the river crossings.
Realms of Arkania: Star Trail, the OG DOS version.
Easy path. So many ready-to-use concepts, so well-developed aesthetics, so little to explain. So many neckbeards who will actually praise you for not being creative. This is why classical fantasy is especially favored by hacks who don't really like and understand it. Which creates positive feedback loop of falling standards, as fantasy is now considered pleb genre.