Traditional vs. weird settings

[fredsteel]

Where would Underrail fall here? Traditional or weird?

I think it's just a traditional setting that's original. The x-files and time travel stuff isn't that weird/alien. Even the ASZ plot is just very spooky but that's it.

 

[0sacred]

Where would Underrail fall here? Traditional or weird?

is Underrail post-apoc?

I would say Fallout is a traditional setting. For one [CHARNAME] can only be human, and the NPC races are kind of "tame", weirdness wise (mutants and ghouls). Also locations are not that far out there (deserts, cities, military bases).

 

[Dadd]

There aren't many genuinely weird settings in video games to begin with. Most of them are repackaged historical or contemporary settings with abnormally colored people.

 

[WhiteShark]

>no kingcomrade option
I just want the worldbuilding to be solid. If I can't take the setting seriously then I won't be drawn into the experience and my enjoyment is diminished. If the foundation is there then it makes no difference to me whether the setting is weird or 'traditional'.

 

[ItsChon]

is Underrail post-apoc?

It is yes. All of humanity is located in subterranean tunnels and metro lines. Surface is uninhabitable.

 

[KainenMorden]

colored people.

Excuse me??!!

 

[NecroLord]

There aren't many genuinely weird settings in video games to begin with. Most of them are repackaged historical or contemporary settings with abnormally colored people.

You mean they get the Netflix Adaptation treatment.

 

[JarlFrank]

It's called fantasy. Elves and orcs and dwarves have become so generic at this point, they lost all sense of wonder. Where's the fantastic when you can already predict everything because it's the exact same thing as every other fantasy game? Where's the author's imagination if he just copypastes what has been done before?

I propose a return to TRUE tradition: pulp fantasy!

Robert E. Howard's savage sword & sorcery! Lovecraft's horror! Clark Ashton Smith's perfect blend of both, expertly expressed in his Zothique stories! Edgar Rice Borroughs' fantastic sword & planet! And all of it deeply rooted within the long-standing tradition of adventure fiction!
Those are the kinds of settings I long for. Raw imagination, unconstrained by artificial genre expectations, where action and wonder lurks around every corner!

I want to explore the red hills of Barsoom and meet a half-naked Dejah Thoris!
I want to be the savage Tarzan and explore ancient jungle ruins!
I want to be Indiana Jones raiding tombs haunted by mythic beasts!

I want the pulp adventure, not the generic boring "hurr durr orcs are raiding an elf village will you help?" I've done a million times before.

 

[Dadd]

I'd like to role play as a bacterial colony in a hostile digestive system.

 

[Fedora Master]

Does it matter? Both will be woke these days. You could be playing as a literal amorphous blob and the devs would still make sure to tell you about other blobs sexual preferences.

Look at Numanuma.

 

[Kabas]

"hurr durr orcs are raiding an elf village will you help?"

Talk about people not utilising what the setting gives them, how many fantasy RPGs give you the option of being the orc, huh?!
The proper kind of orc who does proper orcish things like raiding the villages, eating manflesh or unleashing packs of wargs upon women and children.

 

[Wilian]

Forgotten Realms is very weird once you start looking into it. Tolkien, despite being the daddy of all fantasy, is remarkably different than his imitators.

Can you give some examples of this? Not arguing or being facetious, honestly asking and curious. I feel like the underdark may be alien to tolkein's high fantasy, low magic setting but I haven't read Tolkein for many years.

Tolkien isn't low magic tho'. That's movie, not book perception.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Ambiguous title leads to parallel discussions, unsurprisingly. If we take traditional to mean Tolkienesque it's usually a tired formula, but it can always be done well. Unfortunately, people are so tired of the cheap imitations that they've largely overlooked some of the best elements of his mythos. Some of them would appear quite unique if they received a good videogame adaptation.

If by traditional we mean medieval European, then I believe we have barely scratched the surface. Darklands and Ultima are shining examples of this inspiration, but they cover only a tiny fraction of the territory. And they're a drop in the ocean of generic orcs and elves stories.

We have games like Fallout that aren't "traditional" but aren't "weird" either, they simply draw influences from other established genres. Because Fallout had genius, it was also original, and now it's become conventional on its own. Deus Ex, Arcanum, Bloodlines, Age of Decadence were also unconventional and innovative, but I'm not sure if I'd call them weird (they all have weird moments, for sure).

What's a truly weird game? Kenshi, Planescape Torment, Geneforge, Morrowind, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands will perhaps be accepted as examples. Counting only RPGs, of course--not the weirdest genre by a mile, at least in therms of aesthetics(SHMUPs, Rail Shooters, Adventure, Horror seem to have a lot more weirdness in general). Those games seem to not only have weird aesthetics, but some unconventional mechanic or foundational concept to make them stand out from the pack. For example:

Kenshi - lose fights, get brutally beaten to get stronger.
Torment - death is part of the journey
Geneforge - your "summons" are living creatures for whom you are morally responsible
Morrowind - unorthodox spell combinations with wild results
Shattered Lands - rich choices and consequences (rather special for the time)

It seems to me that games being what they are--things we play with for their novelty, curiosity--an abundance of original ideas lends itself quite well to "weirdness". This also makes them more memorable and I think reinforces their identity as videogames. It's good in itself that weird games exist, whether they're successful or not. Some old adventure games seem to be remembered simply by how weird they are, they send us back to a time of unfettered creativity and exploration in game development.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Traditional settings typically are Tolkienesque worlds, like anything set in the Forgotten Realms.

I think Tolkien would disagree with that assessment seeing how many transexual gay special snowflake demons there are running around along with the plethora of extremely degenerate sexual perversions being glorified in the Forgotten Realms setting.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Fantasy is kinda of funny since it seems to have two major sources, Tolkien and his nostalgic take on tradition as filtered by his English background, and hippies and New Age people, mostly from America, who went to look for tradition outside of Europe and for the most part enved up latching on eastern traditions and religions.

In most fantasy settings, whether conservative or esoteric, one can see a convergence between those two sources. Torment, of course, veers more towards eastern ideas and concepts, Avellone having been inspired probably by American authors like Roger Zelanzy, where as "conventional" fantasy is mostly Tolkienesque in character, so the inspiration is medieval England, European folkore etc, though of course there's nothing preventing a converge and intermingling of the two.

Given this, i'm not sure there's much of a ditchotomy between "traditional" and "wierd", it just seems a matter whether Tolkien takes precedence over the esoteric hippie, New Age stuff or whether the latter recieves greater emphasis, but the two always seem to coexist on some level as the example of the Forgotten Realms shows. If you want "wierd" there's still plenty of that in there as well.

 

[good fucking shit happen]

"hurr durr orcs are raiding an elf village will you help?"

Talk about people not utilising what the setting gives them, how many fantasy RPGs give you the option of being the orc, huh?!
The proper kind of orc who does proper orcish things like raiding the villages, eating manflesh or unleashing packs of wargs upon women and children.

Plenty of those around mane so you have just been lookin in the wrong section.

 

[JarlFrank]

Fantasy is kinda of funny since it seems to have two major sources, Tolkien and his nostalgic take on tradition as filtered by his English background, and hippies and New Age people, mostly from America, who went to look for tradition outside of Europe and for the most part enved up latching on eastern traditions and religions.

You forgot the pulp fantasy of Howard, Smith, etc who took their inspiration from traditional western adventure fiction.

Howard is Dumas and Stevenson if you were to transport their stories out of the historical and into the fantastic.

Fantasy = adventure fiction set in worlds other than historical Earth.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ho right right, yeah forgot about that. Shit.

 

[S.torch]

Fantasy is kinda of funny since it seems to have two major sources, Tolkien and his nostalgic take on tradition as filtered by his English background, and hippies and New Age people, mostly from America, who went to look for tradition outside of Europe and for the most part enved up latching on eastern traditions and religions.

Tolkien is pure, hard fantasy and legendary tradition. His work is as present as it was in his day as it is today. Planescape (or Torment) is a setting that expands from the initial planes that were in D&D, which has nothing to do with New Age. Is a response to the surge of more enigmatic settings in that same period less focused on Dungeon Crawling and more on Role-Playing, and it has some similarities to them like the inclusion of factions and aesthetics.

New Age crap is not related to Fantasy at all, or any type of mysticism. New Age is a honeypot to snare ignorant people looking for answers or help.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah well whether you like it or not a lot of fantasy authors are New Age quacks. Those are also the more degenerate ones, like Piers Anthony.

 

[Kabas]

"hurr durr orcs are raiding an elf village will you help?"

Talk about people not utilising what the setting gives them, how many fantasy RPGs give you the option of being the orc, huh?!
The proper kind of orc who does proper orcish things like raiding the villages, eating manflesh or unleashing packs of wargs upon women and children.

Plenty of those around mane so you have just been lookin in the wrong section.

Well, there is that Natuk game.
Age of fear 2 has an orc campaign that starts with a proper village raid.
Overlord games can count, technically.
Stone soup roguelike and another recent one i forgot the name of, the one in which you're an evil god reborn as a mortal.
Tale's of maj'eyal dlc campaign can also count, probably.

You know what, you're actually kinda right. I take my words back.

 

[luj1]

15 years ago I read this book called "Dead Names: The Dark History of the Necronomicon". It was really less about the Necronomicon and more about the modern occult history of America. Particularly the underground occult scene of New York during the 60s, 70s and 80s. I had no idea that such a time and place existed where intelligence agencies, church denominations, UFO cults, drugs and magick collided. Thinking of it, it could serve as a really cool RPG setting.

 

[Iucounu]

I propose a return to TRUE tradition: pulp fantasy!

Robert E. Howard's savage sword & sorcery! Lovecraft's horror! Clark Ashton Smith's perfect blend of both, expertly expressed in his Zothique stories! Edgar Rice Borroughs' fantastic sword & planet! And all of it deeply rooted within the long-standing tradition of adventure fiction!
Those are the kinds of settings I long for. Raw imagination, unconstrained by artificial genre expectations, where action and wonder lurks around every corner!

I want to explore the red hills of Barsoom and meet a half-naked Dejah Thoris!
I want to be the savage Tarzan and explore ancient jungle ruins!
I want to be Indiana Jones raiding tombs haunted by mythic beasts!

I want the pulp adventure, not the generic boring "hurr durr orcs are raiding an elf village will you help?" I've done a million times before.

Maybe the Gor novels by John Norman could revitalize the genre? Haven't read them myself yet, but the description on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor sounds like a smash hit in the making:

The Gor series repeatedly depicts men abducting and physically and sexually brutalizing women, who grow to enjoy their submissive state. According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Norman's "sexual philosophy" is "widely detested"​

...​

The flora, fauna and customs of Gor are intricately detailed. Norman populates his planet with the equivalents of Roman, Greek, Native American, Viking, Inuit and other cultures. In the novels, these various population groups are transplants from Earth brought there by spacecraft through the behind-the-scenes rulers of Gor, the Priest-Kings, an extraterrestrial species of insectoid appearance.​

...​

The Gor novels have been criticized for their focus on relationships between dominant men and submissive women, the latter often in positions of slavery. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy has stated that the first several books are "passable exercises" of Edgar Rice Burroughs-style fiction while "later volumes degenerate into extremely sexist, sadomasochistic pornography involving the ritual humiliation of women, and as a result have caused widespread offence".[8][16] Science fiction/fantasy author Michael Moorcock has suggested that the Gor novels should be placed on the top shelves of bookstores, saying, "I’m not for censorship but I am for strategies which marginalize stuff that works to objectify women and suggests women enjoy being beaten."​

 

[Arulan]

As always, it comes down to the skill of the writers, the world-building, the attention to detail, and so forth. That said, in practice I feel like weird settings strike a cord a lot more often with me. Perhaps it's because it forces a certain level of creativity into creating something new and non-traditional. With the latter (in fantasy) you're already competing with a collective understanding of what Elves, Dwarves, Wizards, etc. are. For a lot of people this will be Tolkien's Middle-earth. RPGs like this can sometimes feel like the designers are borrowing from that collective understanding and not fleshing out their own worlds, or when they choose to deviate it's not very convincing, and comes off as "look what we did, they're different".

 

[scytheavatar]

How many RPGs with weird setting actually sell well?

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-robert-kurvitz-interview-at-pc-gamer.122173/

Swen seems to be the only guy in the room who gets it.

“I don’t think that setting is necessarily that important, as long as it’s a setting that appeals to a large enough group of players and generates some initial interest. It’s what you do with a setting that’s important. It’s perfectly possible to come up with a brilliant fantasy game and do something that has never been done before. That’ll be the case forever, I think, and it’s the same for science fiction.”

“I have a couple of settings that I’d really like to explore, but I have to remind myself that there’s a big risk that, if I do, nobody’s ever going to want to play them because there’s only a small group that’s interested in the setting.”

Like what's the point of setting a game in a weird setting other than stroking the ego of the creators?