Are you sick of fantasy-based role-playing games?

[stompy]

It's the year 2020. Nazi Accountants are Plotting to take over the world with the Mind Control Lasers hidden on their Orbital Banking Satellites. Only you can stop them...

Sweet! When can I pre-order?

And no, I'm not sick of fantasy-based RPGs. Why? 'Cos I don't play enough to be sick of them.

- A procrastinator

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

It's the year 2020. Nazi Accountants are Plotting to take over the world with the Mind Control Lasers hidden on their Orbital Banking Satellites. Only you can stop them...

Sweet! When can I pre-order?

20 years ago when Steve Jackson's Illuminati first came out./fnord.

 

[Saskwach]

So we all agree that Tolkien did some great things with fantasy

The guy was an absolute literary genius. Whether you like his writing or not, you have to give anyone props that created an entire language. He did more then just some great things for fantasy. His writings have been groundwork for everything "high fantasy". I dare say there would be no high fantasy without him and CS Lewis, but I suppose that's openly debatable.

If you think that sixty or so pages describing Bilbo Baggins's birthday party, and turgid prose that reads like a description of an ordnance survey map, equates to literary genius, then yes, Tolkien is a god damned genius.

This was about my point. Tolkien shaped fantasy into what it is today but he added a whole lot ofcruft to it as well, like excessive recounting of backstory (dude, ease up, I like passing references to things I will never understand) and a straight up and down Good-Evil conflict. I don't mind this kind of fantasy being around but I don't want to have a roughly 50/50 chance of reading such fantasy if I were to randomly choose a fantasy book.
Creating your own language is linguistic genius, not literary. So mad props to him but not literary props.

Actually, I re-read LOTRO a while back, and was really genuinely surprised at how good Tolien was as a writer. Forgetting the insane amounts of back story and languages he created for the books, he was a pretty damn nifty author. Each of the characters from the Fellowship, fer instance, had their own distinct voice and personality (and often their own brand of humour, like Sam Gamgee). There are some incredibly beautiful descriptive passages within the trilogy, and a remarkably good understanding of psychology (look at Gollum, and the way he is for all intents and purposes a junkie). It isn't all 'And Ballilimor said unto Galizmalel "Go forth and slay the whatever"'. Behind all the lore and the languages, its actually a damn good book. But each to his own.

It's not so much that he's a good or bad author but that since his books the genre has been in this rut because everyone wants to be Like Tolkien. It's like sci-fi if everything was Like Star Wars.

 

[Natural Hazard]

no, Its nice to play a game that isn't set in the over-used generic Modern Day/Future enviroment. That being said, it doesn't bother me tbh.

 

[Altercator]

Well, you should be interested that someone thought up of making a Spy RPG.

A.

Spy.

R.

P.

G.

You should google Alpha Protocol, or at least start here:
http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/794/794751.html
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=186098

It's made by Obsidian, people behind KOTOR II.

It's an RPG. With spies!

 

[Saskwach]

So we all agree that Tolkien did some great things with fantasy

The guy was an absolute literary genius. Whether you like his writing or not, you have to give anyone props that created an entire language. He did more then just some great things for fantasy. His writings have been groundwork for everything "high fantasy". I dare say there would be no high fantasy without him and CS Lewis, but I suppose that's openly debatable.

If you think that sixty or so pages describing Bilbo Baggins's birthday party, and turgid prose that reads like a description of an ordnance survey map, equates to literary genius, then yes, Tolkien is a god damned genius.

This was about my point. Tolkien shaped fantasy into what it is today but he added a whole lot ofcruft to it as well, like excessive recounting of backstory (dude, ease up, I like passing references to things I will never understand) and a straight up and down Good-Evil conflict. I don't mind this kind of fantasy being around but I don't want to have a roughly 50/50 chance of reading such fantasy if I were to randomly choose a fantasy book.
Creating your own language is linguistic genius, not literary. So mad props to him but not literary props.

Actually, I re-read LOTRO a while back, and was really genuinely surprised at how good Tolien was as a writer. Forgetting the insane amounts of back story and languages he created for the books, he was a pretty damn nifty author. Each of the characters from the Fellowship, fer instance, had their own distinct voice and personality (and often their own brand of humour, like Sam Gamgee). There are some incredibly beautiful descriptive passages within the trilogy, and a remarkably good understanding of psychology (look at Gollum, and the way he is for all intents and purposes a junkie). It isn't all 'And Ballilimor said unto Galizmalel "Go forth and slay the whatever"'. Behind all the lore and the languages, its actually a damn good book. But each to his own.

It's not so much that he's a good or bad author but that since his books the genre has been in this rut because everyone wants to be Like Tolkien. It's like sci-fi if everything was Like Star Wars.

That's not the T man's fault though. That's like blaming Zeppelin for all those god-awful hair metal bands in the 80s (Whitesnake, Def Leppard, etc).

Oh Im not blaming him, I just want those dang copycats to stop beating the high fantasy dead horse. I have no doubt even Mr T would agree with this sentiment.

 

[windfish]

So we all agree that Tolkien did some great things with fantasy

The guy was an absolute literary genius. Whether you like his writing or not, you have to give anyone props that created an entire language. He did more then just some great things for fantasy. His writings have been groundwork for everything "high fantasy". I dare say there would be no high fantasy without him and CS Lewis, but I suppose that's openly debatable.

If you think that sixty or so pages describing Bilbo Baggins's birthday party, and turgid prose that reads like a description of an ordnance survey map, equates to literary genius, then yes, Tolkien is a god damned genius.

This was about my point. Tolkien shaped fantasy into what it is today but he added a whole lot ofcruft to it as well, like excessive recounting of backstory (dude, ease up, I like passing references to things I will never understand) and a straight up and down Good-Evil conflict. I don't mind this kind of fantasy being around but I don't want to have a roughly 50/50 chance of reading such fantasy if I were to randomly choose a fantasy book.
Creating your own language is linguistic genius, not literary. So mad props to him but not literary props.

Actually, I re-read LOTRO a while back, and was really genuinely surprised at how good Tolien was as a writer. Forgetting the insane amounts of back story and languages he created for the books, he was a pretty damn nifty author. Each of the characters from the Fellowship, fer instance, had their own distinct voice and personality (and often their own brand of humour, like Sam Gamgee). There are some incredibly beautiful descriptive passages within the trilogy, and a remarkably good understanding of psychology (look at Gollum, and the way he is for all intents and purposes a junkie). It isn't all 'And Ballilimor said unto Galizmalel "Go forth and slay the whatever"'. Behind all the lore and the languages, its actually a damn good book. But each to his own.

It's not so much that he's a good or bad author but that since his books the genre has been in this rut because everyone wants to be Like Tolkien. It's like sci-fi if everything was Like Star Wars.

That's not the T man's fault though. That's like blaming Zeppelin for all those god-awful hair metal bands in the 80s (Whitesnake, Def Leppard, etc).

Oh Im not blaming him, I just want those dang copycats to stop beating the high fantasy dead horse. I have no doubt even Mr T would agree with this sentiment.

I tend to agree that Tolkien was a damn-good writer. And I agree that people need to stop ripping him off. I also acknowledge that that's NEVER going to happen.

Even most good authors of Fantasy today acknowledge that they're following the footsteps of Mighty Tolkien, but the best ones try to do it artistically. Now, a lot of people have mixed feelings about Robert Jordan (may he rest in peace), but he managed to pull it off with his Wheel of Time series. He started off his characters in a small village to give people a familiar place to start, and then opened the world up. He used Underhill as a travelling name, something you have to have some serious testicular fortitude to do, but past that, his books are (leviathan) examples of good high fantasy that tributes Tolkien without ripping him off. They're fun and original, but beastly long.

 

[Kogarian]

I'm not sick of it, but it would be cool to see it expand itself more.