A problem with RPGs: RPG developers are not well-read in myth and fantasy/sci-fi literature

[ERYFKRAD]

find me something produced currently that isn't.

Shit like The Expanse, I suppose?
I see your point somewhat nonetheless.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that.

You sure about that?

I mean, is there a single unified sci fi template?

As much as the single unified fantasy Generica posted on the previous page? Trek. Mass Effect. Star Wars. WH40K. They all follow it to this or that degree. You could argue they are fantasy in a sci fi guise (space opera, then), but to that I will tell you: find me something produced currently that isn't.

Are those all the same plot though? Fantasy has degenerated into elves and dwarves fighting the evil overlord. Is there something similar for scifi? Let me check…

Star Trek: utopian space explorers explore new worlds and new civilizations every week. Sometimes there’s politics and gray morality.

Mass Effect: alliance of space elves and space dwarves fight evil space overlord.

Star Wars: space knight fights evil space overlord.

40k: numerous pastiches and parodies of scifi and fantasy tropes duke it out for control of an unending bureaucratic nightmare and literally hellscape of a galaxy.

Of your four examples, it’s only really Mass Effect and Star Wars that follow a trite formula. There aren’t really a lot of scifi games compared to fantasy, so they haven’t been driven into the ground quite so thoroughly yet. How much can you say about yet other genres? Cyberpunk? Anything with a modern setting? Do those have universal plot templates that everyone follows?

I would argue that they don’t and that’s a key reason why the uncreative “creatives” don’t touch them. It’s easy to copy the premise of “heroes fight the evil overlord.” It’s a lot harder to come up with a different plot outline entirely. But feel free to correct me.

 

[motherfucker]

The problem with RPGs(and everything else, for that matter) is that people who make them are fucking retards, and so are people who buy them. Everything is very accessible nowadays, so people with low IQ, naturally being more numerous, infest audiences of every thing in existence and end up driving and shaping the demand for them. Can't even blame creators for pandering to them - they're just listening to their audience, after all.
Colony Ship will be the last new game I play, the last movie I watched was from early 2010's; don't even get me started on books. Creative industry is rotten in its entirety, not just vidya and absolutely not just RPGs. There's plenty of classics to stick to, and if you run out - you can always seek other forms of entertainment. Create something just for yourself, perhaps.

 

[Storyfag]

find me something produced currently that isn't.

Shit like The Expanse, I suppose?
I see your point somewhat nonetheless.

Just a matter of scale and point in time.

 

[Storyfag]

Are those all the same plot though? Fantasy has degenerated into elves and dwarves fighting the evil overlord. Is there something similar for scifi? Let me check…

Star Trek: utopian space explorers explore new worlds and new civilizations every week. Sometimes there’s politics and gray morality.

Mass Effect: alliance of space elves and space dwarves fight evil space overlord.

Star Wars: space knight fights evil space overlord.

40k: numerous pastiches and parodies of scifi and fantasy tropes duke it out for control of an unending bureaucratic nightmare and literally hellscape of a galaxy.

In that case it could be argued that not every fantasy story has the same plot either. Lemme see.

Witcher: has a few wannabe-but-not-quite-there evil overlords, but they are in the backdrop. Usually forcused on politics and gray morality.

Tolkien: THE classic. Elves and Dwarves fight evil overlord.

Forgotten Realms: THE Generica setting, with plenty evil overlords fighting dwarves and elves, but not always the focus of the setting.

Warhammer Fantasy: numerous pastiches and parodies of fantasy tripes duke it out for control of an unending autumn tales nightmare.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Are those all the same plot though? Fantasy has degenerated into elves and dwarves fighting the evil overlord. Is there something similar for scifi? Let me check…

Star Trek: utopian space explorers explore new worlds and new civilizations every week. Sometimes there’s politics and gray morality.

Mass Effect: alliance of space elves and space dwarves fight evil space overlord.

Star Wars: space knight fights evil space overlord.

40k: numerous pastiches and parodies of scifi and fantasy tropes duke it out for control of an unending bureaucratic nightmare and literally hellscape of a galaxy.

In that case it could be argued that not every fantasy story has the same plot either. Lemme see.

Witcher: has a few wannabe-but-not-quite-there evil overlords, but they are in the backdrop. Usually forcused on politics and gray morality.

Tolkien: THE classic. Elves and Dwarves fight evil overlord.

Forgotten Realms: THE Generica setting, with plenty evil overlords fighting dwarves and elves, but not always the focus of the setting.

Warhammer Fantasy: numerous pastiches and parodies of fantasy tripes duke it out for control of an unending autumn tales nightmare.

I feel like we're cherry picking by limiting ourselves to popular examples. I imagine that if we had a larger sample size then 90% of it would be repetitive "heroes fight evil overlord" plots.

But overall I would say that the presence or absence of popular entries and templates in a genre very strongly influence those who create in it. For example, Arcanum and Bloodlines are some of the few examples of urban fantasy crpgs and most of the ones made since have been hugely influenced by them and sometimes to the point of being painfully derivative of their plot outlines.

A lot of so-called "creatives" are not creative. They prefer to take shortcuts at every opportunity, to the point of just writing derivative fanfiction of prior entries in the genre. They're afraid to experiment, afraid to fail, afraid to cobble things together to gauge interest from audiences. They're afraid to create.

 

[Sibelius]

This is a very interesting video, fits well with the topic. It details a study done by Lego on differences between male and female (boy's and girl's) psychology, as in how they interact with toys, and extrapolates it out to today's 'writing' and 'entertainment'.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

This is a very interesting video, fits well with the topic. It details a study done by Lego on differences between male and female (boy's and girl's) psychology, as in how they interact with toys, and extrapolates it out to today's 'writing' and 'entertainment'.

I don't agree with that at all. We've had plenty of movies and shows featuring action heroines and/or were aimed at women that didn't suck. Aliens, Terminator 2, Labyrinth, the original Charlie's Angels, Cleopatra 2525, Xena, Queen of Swords, Relic Hunter, Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Lois & Clark, Kim Possible, Juniper Lee, Beast Wars, ReBoot, etc.

The problem with these modern stories is that they're written by hacks with chips on their shoulders.

For example, compare how Cleopatra 2525 wrote the heroines' male sidekick versus Ghostbusters 2016. Both write their male sidekicks as athletic hotties that the heroines lust after, but in the former he's the team technician who invents all their cool weapons and tech. He has his own dark backstory that gets revealed as the show goes on. There's a running gag that he can't have sex despite one of the heroine's repeatedly taking him out to dinner because he's a terminator robot reprogrammed not to harm humans.

In Relic Hunter, the male sidekick is a simple teaching assistant that the action girl heroine repeatedly takes into dangerous situations that he is clearly not suitable for. He takes the role traditionally reserved for women in older action stories: he's often the damsel in distress, his contributions can be questionable (although ultimately this is the action heroine's fault for taking him with her in the first place when he is a college teaching assistant)... but he isn't denigrated for being a man. Whenever there's a cute woman of the week, he's the one she kisses at the end of the episode or he's the one she tries to kidnap if she's the villain of the week.

But the modern heroines aren't allowed to have flaws or depth. Male characters are needlessly put down to prop them up. Somehow we've regressed since the 1990s and 2000s wave of heroines. What gives?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What gives?

Jealousy

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Okay, I looked it up. There was never any study done by Lego saying that little girls typically turned dolls into clones of themselves.

In fact, that statement contradicts everything we know about female psychology from a cursory examination of deviantart and fanfiction.net (i.e. creative expression without the filter of publishers). These women and girls love to create huge casts of original characters that play off one another.

 

[Sibelius]

Okay, I looked it up. There was never any study done by Lego saying that little girls typically turned dolls into clones of themselves.

In fact, that statement contradicts everything we know about female psychology from a cursory examination of deviantart and fanfiction.net (i.e. creative expression without the filter of publishers). These women and girls love to create huge casts of original characters that play off one another.

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/l...-girls-raise-questions-about-gender-and-play/

'Michael McNally, Lego’s brand relations director for the Friends’ theme....'

'The boy focus got Lego back on its feet and a couple of years ago the company decided it was time to try again to figure out how to attract girls. It had made several attempts at that over the years, but all had fizzled. The company sent a bunch of anthropologists out to study how girls played differently than boys.

What they found, McNally said, was that girls wanted more reality-based toys that let them see themselves as the characters, whereas boys liked more escapist, fantasy stuff like ninjas and wizards.'

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Okay, I looked it up. There was never any study done by Lego saying that little girls typically turned dolls into clones of themselves.

In fact, that statement contradicts everything we know about female psychology from a cursory examination of deviantart and fanfiction.net (i.e. creative expression without the filter of publishers). These women and girls love to create huge casts of original characters that play off one another.

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/l...-girls-raise-questions-about-gender-and-play/

'Michael McNally, Lego’s brand relations director for the Friends’ theme....'

'The boy focus got Lego back on its feet and a couple of years ago the company decided it was time to try again to figure out how to attract girls. It had made several attempts at that over the years, but all had fizzled. The company sent a bunch of anthropologists out to study how girls played differently than boys.

What they found, McNally said, was that girls wanted more reality-based toys that let them see themselves as the characters, whereas boys liked more escapist, fantasy stuff like ninjas and wizards.'

I want to see the actual study, not unverified PR bullshit. This statement contradicts everything I’ve learned from female speculative fiction writers like Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Anne Rice, etc.

Paranormal romance is a hugely escapist genre about having sex with mythological monsters and that’s overwhelmingly written by and for women!

 

[Storyfag]

This statement contradicts everything I’ve learned from female speculative fiction writers like Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Anne Rice, etc.

Keep in mind that these exceptional individuals might not be representative of the general populace.

 

[Sibelius]

Okay, I looked it up. There was never any study done by Lego saying that little girls typically turned dolls into clones of themselves.

In fact, that statement contradicts everything we know about female psychology from a cursory examination of deviantart and fanfiction.net (i.e. creative expression without the filter of publishers). These women and girls love to create huge casts of original characters that play off one another.

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/l...-girls-raise-questions-about-gender-and-play/

'Michael McNally, Lego’s brand relations director for the Friends’ theme....'

'The boy focus got Lego back on its feet and a couple of years ago the company decided it was time to try again to figure out how to attract girls. It had made several attempts at that over the years, but all had fizzled. The company sent a bunch of anthropologists out to study how girls played differently than boys.

What they found, McNally said, was that girls wanted more reality-based toys that let them see themselves as the characters, whereas boys liked more escapist, fantasy stuff like ninjas and wizards.'

I want to see the actual study, not unverified PR bullshit. This statement contradicts everything I’ve learned from female speculative fiction writers like Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Anne Rice, etc.

Paranormal romance is a hugely escapist genre about having sex with mythological monsters and that’s overwhelmingly written by and for women!

Yeah, I doubt lego are going to publicise intricate details of a market study they have commissioned and probably paid millions for, just to let their competitors hoover it up and use it. I agree with your list of exceptional female fantasy authors, would add Robin Hobb to your list, I also agree with the above post though, that they are absolutely exceptions to the rule. They are also all authors of written works, which is a very different discipline to writing for telvision, film and gaming. The barrier for entry to impose your will on a widely consumed product is far lower for the latter than the former, particularly as women and other formerly opressed groups are now being hired as a priority to tick boxes and virtue signal rather than on merit. Maybe, just maybe, there is a correlation between the downturn in quality of writing/executive leadership, the information detailed in the study and these affirmative action hiring policies. I guess what I am saying is utopia for me is a true meritocracy, where only the very best stories are green lit and funded, regardless of the race or gender of the author. Now back to Colony Ship, which I am sure will be well written!

 

[RaggleFraggle]

This statement contradicts everything I’ve learned from female speculative fiction writers like Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Anne Rice, etc.

Keep in mind that these exceptional individuals might not be representative of the general populace.

Okay, I looked it up. There was never any study done by Lego saying that little girls typically turned dolls into clones of themselves.

In fact, that statement contradicts everything we know about female psychology from a cursory examination of deviantart and fanfiction.net (i.e. creative expression without the filter of publishers). These women and girls love to create huge casts of original characters that play off one another.

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/l...-girls-raise-questions-about-gender-and-play/

'Michael McNally, Lego’s brand relations director for the Friends’ theme....'

'The boy focus got Lego back on its feet and a couple of years ago the company decided it was time to try again to figure out how to attract girls. It had made several attempts at that over the years, but all had fizzled. The company sent a bunch of anthropologists out to study how girls played differently than boys.

What they found, McNally said, was that girls wanted more reality-based toys that let them see themselves as the characters, whereas boys liked more escapist, fantasy stuff like ninjas and wizards.'

I want to see the actual study, not unverified PR bullshit. This statement contradicts everything I’ve learned from female speculative fiction writers like Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Anne Rice, etc.

Paranormal romance is a hugely escapist genre about having sex with mythological monsters and that’s overwhelmingly written by and for women!

Yeah, I doubt lego are going to publicise intricate details of a market study they have commissioned and probably paid millions for, just to let their competitors hoover it up and use it. I agree with your list of exceptional female fantasy authors, would add Robin Hobb to your list, I also agree with the above post though, that they are absolutely exceptions to the rule. They are also all authors of written works, which is a very different discipline to writing for telvision, film and gaming. The barrier for entry to impose your will on a widely consumed product is far lower for the latter than the former, particularly as women and other formerly opressed groups are now being hired as a priority to tick boxes and virtue signal rather than on merit. Maybe, just maybe, there is a correlation between the downturn in quality of writing/executive leadership, the information detailed in the study and these affirmative action hiring policies. I guess what I am saying is utopia for me is a true meritocracy, where only the very best stories are green lit and funded, regardless of the race or gender of the author. Now back to Colony Ship, which I am sure will be well written!

Women are not overwhelmingly narcissistic sociopaths like Kathleen Kennedy and co. If that was true, then humanity would’ve gone extinct years ago.

The current woke dystopia has nothing to do with women as a class being incompetent narcissistic sociopaths and everything to do with Hollyweird creating perfect conditions for narcissistic sociopathic woken to take control.

Lots of girls write mary sues when they start but usually grow out of it. Protectors of the Plot Continuum is an entire fandom of female fandom writers who liked poking fun at mary sues written by younger writers.

When given freedom of choice women typically prefer jobs involving people like social worker or surgeon. Wanting to help people is the opposite of a narcissistic sociopath.

The current wave of mediocrity written by narcissistic sociopathic womanchildren doesn’t reflect women as a class. We shouldn’t assume it does because that is not a direction that humanity should go.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I agree with the general notion that video game writers should read more in general. Most problems with writing in recent games isn't related to authors not knowing enough mythology or classics, these people just aren't skilled at writing. Dialogue sucks, pacing is all over the place, villains don't feel threatening, companion npcs don't feel like people etc. Knowing a lot about mythology is useful when creating your own universe, but it's not much help when you are hired to make new Forgotten Realms game. These people don't need to read obscure sci-fi writers, they need to read fucking Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck to see how a story that's not completelly fucked up even looks like.

 

[Axel_am]

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that.

You sure about that?

I mean, is there a single unified sci fi template?

Star Wars/Dune comes to mind.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that.

You sure about that?

I mean, is there a single unified sci fi template?

Star Wars/Dune comes to mind.

Then where are all the clones?

 

[Axel_am]

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that.

You sure about that?

I mean, is there a single unified sci fi template?

Star Wars/Dune comes to mind.

Then where are all the clones?

I wouldn't look for clones exactly but more like for stories that take from/copy the teenage Chosen One narrative, the dying mentor/father figure. You can also see parts of Dune's style in Riddick, Mad Max, Alien and even The Matrix. Dune is pretty big for sci-fi. Star Wars is kinda obvious I think.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that.

You sure about that?

I mean, is there a single unified sci fi template?

Star Wars/Dune comes to mind.

Then where are all the clones?

I wouldn't look for clones exactly but more like for stories that take from/copy the teenage Chosen One narrative, the dying mentor/father figure. You can also see parts of Dune's style in Riddick, Mad Max, Alien and even The Matrix. Dune is pretty big for sci-fi. Star Wars is kinda obvious I think.

That describes Frodo and Gandalf. You see the exact same tropes in every other fantasy novel.

 

[Axel_am]

That describes Frodo and Gandalf. You see the exact same tropes in every other fantasy novel.

Yes, the way I've been told this was popularized most by Dune and LOTR. That as well as the high level of characterization and world building that Dune did is what sets it apart from other sci-fi's at the time. There's a quote from Arthur C. Clarke where he say's that he knows nothing with the same level of grandeur like LOTR and Dune.

 

[Rincewind]

I'm often shocked how bad cRPG writing is. I'd rather play some minimal story dungeon crawler and then read some good sci-fi than to click through badly written cutscenes.

Interestingly, adventure games, especially text adventures from the 80s feature much higher quality writing. It's a night and day difference.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

That describes Frodo and Gandalf. You see the exact same tropes in every other fantasy novel.

Yes, the way I've been told this was popularized most by Dune and LOTR. That as well as the high level of characterization and world building that Dune did is what sets it apart from other sci-fi's at the time. There's a quote from Arthur C. Clarke where he say's that he knows nothing with the same level of grandeur like LOTR and Dune.

Yes, but my points are that:

1) genres outside fantasy don’t have a single genre-overshadowing work that every hack copies as their outline

2) fantasy (specifically Tolkienesque and D&D-inspired) is overrepresented in crpgs because of this, whereas all other genres (including non-Tolkien fantasy) struggle to get made

Most of the non-Tolkien crpg classics like Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, and Vampire: Bloodlines were made by the same dev team. How is it that one team can be more creative than >99% of the entire rest of the market? Even the few post-apoc and cyberpunk crpgs that exist are mostly made to jump on the bandwagon popularity of Fallout 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. In general I feel like the people in the position to create these kinds of games have suffered brain rot in the last two or so decades. The barrier to entry is lower than it’s ever been but there hasn’t been a corresponding uptick in games that could be considered classics in retrospect. For every Don’t Escape, Stasis, Primordia, Disco Elysium, etc (I’m counting adventure games because otherwise I wouldn’t have much) there’s a thousand interchangeable “chosen one saving the universe from the evil overlord with the macguffin” stories.

 

[Axel_am]

That describes Frodo and Gandalf. You see the exact same tropes in every other fantasy novel.

Yes, the way I've been told this was popularized most by Dune and LOTR. That as well as the high level of characterization and world building that Dune did is what sets it apart from other sci-fi's at the time. There's a quote from Arthur C. Clarke where he say's that he knows nothing with the same level of grandeur like LOTR and Dune.

Yes, but my points are that:

1) genres outside fantasy don’t have a single genre-overshadowing work that every hack copies as their outline

2) fantasy (specifically Tolkienesque and D&D-inspired) is overrepresented in crpgs because of this, whereas all other genres (including non-Tolkien fantasy) struggle to get made

Most of the non-Tolkien crpg classics like Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, and Vampire: Bloodlines were made by the same dev team. How is it that one team can be more creative than >99% of the entire rest of the market? Even the few post-apoc and cyberpunk crpgs that exist are mostly made to jump on the bandwagon popularity of Fallout 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. In general I feel like the people in the position to create these kinds of games have suffered brain rot in the last two or so decades. The barrier to entry is lower than it’s ever been but there hasn’t been a corresponding uptick in games that could be considered classics in retrospect. For every Don’t Escape, Stasis, Primordia, Disco Elysium, etc (I’m counting adventure games because otherwise I wouldn’t have much) there’s a thousand interchangeable “chosen one saving the universe from the evil overlord with the macguffin” stories.

Good counter-culture media that is able to penetrate the mass media wall is hard to come by. Maybe in the past it could have been easier to do so as there weren't so many studio trying to come up with something original on a high level. Nowadays everybody is doing their own thing and there are not so many big projects that are being made just so that they can take a leap in story-telling/originality while taking a chance on money.

The chosen one narrative will always be there tho. It's very engraved in the human psyche, look at fairy tales for example or greek mythology. I think that's what makes world building such an important part of fantasy. Thing is that even when making a new world it's easy to see where inspirations have been drawn from as there are such big franchises now that it's hard to ignore them. If anything I'm also getting tired of having to learn a new pantheon every time I boot up something I haven't played before.

I think the best way to create a new fantasy world would be to not stray away so much from the classic tropes but to rather use the world itself to make comments on more philosophical topics - the nuances between good and bad, love and hate etc. You can say a lot of things about universal topics like that while still being original or at the very least enticing. Or dare I say it - thought provoking.

 

[Storyfag]

That describes Frodo and Gandalf. You see the exact same tropes in every other fantasy novel.

Oh noes, White culture contains ageless tropes which resonate with people and remain popular no matter what. Better deconstruct them and try something creative. Maybe black lesbians?