Elves and Dwarves Don't Define Fantasy

[GeeksUtopia]

I have played many of the so-called fantasy games, and really, I am starting to blur games together. Every year, it is the same elf and ork rage that people get hyped up about and by the end of the year, people look at the game and try to place it's game play mechanics with many other fantasy based games. The only game that I can recall to have even a spark of imagination in the world of fantasy would be "The World Ends with You". The game play might have been a bit tedious, and leveling for some of the pins were annoying, and the hazings for the "blowing" play might have gotten me hazed at school for it(immature nicotine butt wipes), but the game did delve into the unknown after death. Giving the unfortunate young the chance to reborn again through a life or evaporate game to a possible better life, it's as good as getting a scratch off ticket that could give you a dollar or one million dollars.

The thing that many developers needs to do, is look into the world, the real world about what is going on out there, what new discoveries were found, or what the average joe does for a living that a fantasy game can be built on. I personally wouldn't mind playing a game about a garbage man fight garbage cause an invisible deity has a trash fetish..idk just spitting out ideas other than ork and elves can't get along

 

[pilouuuu]

I liked the 80's cartoon like He-man and Thundercats where they mixed magic and technology. Thundercats was interesting, because it was like Star Wars, with some egyptian and post-apocalyptic stuff.

It's even something that I miss in entertainment as a whole mixing sci-fi and fantasy. Stories and games based around that could be amazing!

 

[Andrew_C]

I'll bet that that the reason there are no dwarves in the Elder Scrolls is that it would have been too difficult. All the races are anatomically the same give or take a few inches in height & maybe a tail. But dwarves are often proportioned differently & the difference in height would have meant that the developers would have had to make a completely new model.

[pedant]Actually there were dwarfs in TES. They just called them Dwemer and they are extinct. You run into the last one in Morrowind. They were excluded for lore reasons not technical. Half of those free to play Korean MMO's use Gamebryo and they are overrun annoyingly cute short races.[/pedant]

Can't believe Yahtzee forgot Arcanum and Planescape. They may include the standard fantasy races, but they really mix it up and they're both steampunkish in their way.
Also as others have mentioned, Yahtzee really needs to get over his bias against JRPG's. They seem to be the ones who are most willing to mix things up and include other elements.

Also, someone needs to make a CRPG of Deadlands!


EDIT:

Writers such as Clive Barker and Nail Gaiman show that it is possible to not write fantasy fiction that doesn't borrow from Tolkien. Fantasy is not defined by orcs and trolls. It is defined by how willing you are to allow your imagination to take flight and soar.

Writers have been writing fantasy that owes little to Tolkein or Howard since the 30's and 40's. Poul Anderson and L. Sprague De Camp's earlier stuff springs to mind, even though they also wrote at least half of the Conan books.

EDIT 2: Also, "The House on the Borderlands" (1908) and H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands works (20's and 30's) are as much Fantasy as Horror.

I guess what I'm trying to say is even though Tolkein and Howard defined High Fantasy, they did not create the genre of Fantasy.

 

[Whimsi]

I've often wondered this myself. If you can't be bothered to think up new races for a fantasy world, why don't you just make the current races different somehow. I rather liked how Bioware made elves into repressed slaves, but beyond that, they were the same old mystical tree-huggers we've all come to know and yawn about. And the dwarves were basically straight out of any fantasy setting ever, just with greater emphasis placed on political intrigue.

Why not at least switch up their natural habitats? Why can't elves be nomadic, semi-aquatic pirate types who float around the ocean on rickety old ships they salvaged together from driftwood? And why can't dwarves be cosmopolitan sorts who pioneered all the technology in the world, constructed several of the most impressive cities, and are otherwise just foppish dilettants? I mean, I know the whole "tall, willowy elf" and "short, stocky dwarf" come from their environment and upbringing, but this is fantasy. You don't have to explain anything. And if it really bothers you, just change their appearance to fit their new "role" in the world.

And while you're at it, why not just MAKE THEM NOT ELVES AND DWARVES.

I'll bet that that the reason there are no dwarves in the Elder Scrolls is that it would have been too difficult. All the races are anatomically the same give or take a few inches in height & maybe a tail. But dwarves are often proportioned differently & the difference in height would have meant that the developers would have had to make a completely new model.

Actually there were dwarfs in TES. They just called them Dwemer and they are extinct. You run into the last one in Morrowind. They were excluded for lore reasons not technical.

Actually, interestingly enough, the dwemer were actually a subrace of elves from what I've read (that's where the "mer" comes from). I thought that was kind of neat, though with that in mind, I've often said TES would have been better without elves at all.

 

[Andrew_C]

And while you're at it, why not just MAKE THEM NOT ELVES AND DWARVES.

Actually there were dwarfs in TES. They just called them Dwemer and they are extinct. You run into the last one in Morrowind. They were excluded for lore reasons not technical.

Actually, interestingly enough, the dwemer were actually a sub race of elves from what I've read (that's where the "mer" comes from). I thought that was kind of neat, though with that in mind, I've often said TES would have been better without elves at all.

Yup, they were a subspecies of elf, but they are occasionally referred to as dwarves, just as Dunmer are also called dark elves.

I actually think its quite interesting how in TES just about everything is a subspecies of elf. And while their elves are very much stereotypical, at least TES has the lore to back why they are stereotypical. Just a pity they didn't take things a bit further.

 

[Draconalis]

Holy shit! The Dresden Files was mentioned here too!

Best article!

 

[Triality]

Yahtzee, you make some good arguments about the saturation of in medias res delivery in fantasy story's. It does come with the problem of challenging the reader to debate if they are willing to commit the time trying to remember all the name and details being dropped during the middle of some over arching plot. That is a common tool employed, but as a fellow writer I can understand the author's desire to not want the protagonists of his/her story to be SO important that the entire history within the world begins with them. TVTrope's "black hole Mary Sue" comes to mind.

The origin story is the bane of your contemporary Movie Bob, whose has argued counter to your argument that origin stories are done too much and more people should get away from doing them. He argues that in origin stories, the protag will usually still be introduced into the fantasy world as if he's never heard a damn lick about any of it, but with this situation, Bob argues that there is this tendency to reduce the action and invest more in world building leading to a duller tale.

So the argument goes both ways on this one point you brought up. As for elves and dwarves, I agree. They can all just piss right off. Fucking German folk tale creatures.

 

[disgruntledgamer]

Although I sorta agree with Yahtzee on one hand I disagree with him on the other. You see Fantasy has imbedded it's self with Elves and Dwarfs because if it didn't it would lose all meaning.

You see technically Fantasy pretty much applies to all games and movies. In any game where you're not playing yourself in a real life scenario can be considered Fantasy. Every video game can be considered Fantasy.

So if we were to take the fantasy label off of elves, dwarfs and magic and apply it to all genres of Fantasy it would lose all meaning and every time we wanted to talk about a fantasy game we would have to say Elf and Dwarf Fantasy which would be a pain in the ass.

 

[wearesoneutralthatithurts]

well, dunno yet if the books of walter moers are out in english, but he had a nice fantasy setting without the elves and dwarves and swordshit-
they are about the continent of zamonien and they are f´ing wonderful. i´d love a videogame bout zamonien-maybe someone kews captn bluebear(not beard) a fat lying blue bear.^^


[user researches]
the books are out in english and i recomment them MUCHA! the german books are marvellous, wonderfull[insert english word here^^] i dont know wether the english books are equal, because translation is a issue due to style and grammar and this stuff. But if the thranslators are good, the books will be fine.


so-if you want fantasy without elves an dwarves-read this.. they may look like books for children, but they arent^^

A Wild Ride Through the Night, 2004 [not zamonien, this are textx about pictures of gustav dorree]

zamonien:
The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear, 2000 (UK) / 2005 (US)
Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures : a novel in two books, 2004
The City of Dreaming Books, 2006. ISBN 0-436-20609-9
The Alchemaster?s Apprentice, 2009 (English Edn). 978-1-846-55222-9

 

[XAEnimaX]

I love the idea of a sci-fi game that flips modern science the bird. So many games nowadays are looking for realistic physics in a fantasy world. Yet, the idea of fantastic physics in a realistic world sounds very cool to me.

 

[Xakk Zeliff]

It wasn't till Yahtzee mentioned this in a video that I started noticing it as well. I guess I had grown accustomed to seeing elves and dwarves in my medieval fantasy, much like you expect to see the same people working at the stripclub every time you visit. I guess they've been used so much it's become as if something in real life, like trees or roads or drunks. You just take them as a given. I remember how D&d tried to escape this with the Eberron setting, adding some living robots and werewolves and possessed psychics and nudging everything a little towards steampunk.
Speaking of steampunk I never got the attraction. Inefficient technology for dummies coupled with class warfare and expected identification with same? You know who else keeps a gentleman's bearing whilst wielding improbable gadgets and a gung ho attitude? James freaking Bond.

 

[John Bromin]

This has given me a fantastic idea for a videogame. You play as an underpaid gas station attendant, who is suffering from some terminal disease, and wind up being assaulted by knights with strange glowing lances who kidnap him taking him into the future where a giant ogre has taken over the world and he has to work through a series of ever increasingly complicated dungeons. Along the way amassing an army of npc's in the hopes of dethroning the ogre and somehow finding his way home.

If I do go through with it, the game will be an isometric role-playing game hopefully utilizing a modified version of the AD&D system. It will also most likely be worked on in spare time by myself and several others, but I just thought it might work

 

[Holythirteen]

Yahtzee's last idea sounds like the Oceans Unmoving plotline from sluggy freelance. The ships were actually futuristic technology made to look like 1700's era galleons because they were crewed by modern-day earth nerds(and some non-earth nerds) who wanted to play pirates.

Elves and dwarves and magic I'm fine with but characters constantly exposed to hard vacuum with no ill effects is abhorrent to me... odd that...