Mournblade94 said:
I say old chap said:
Abandon Tokienian fantasy, and profit.
My game I run every friday now, is in a non Tolkien world. And I have not looked back. It is so refreshing to play a zebra-taur, an otyugh or a boggard instead of an elf, halfling or dwarf. To just copy paste common fantasy tropes is lazy, as lazy as copy pasting cultures. You can't claim real originality easily if all you do is regurgitate the old, and what is expected. Take out the old, add in new monsters and cultures and go from there, if you want your setting to be new, look to some sci fi for inspiration.
Homebrew for life ioc. There is so much that can be done, and done well.
So how is playing monsters any different in originality? Zebrataur? IS that really original?
Are the Star Trek aliens which are really just snap shots (and poor ones at that) of an aspect of HUMAN culture all that original?
Just because one plays in a world where monsters are PC's certainly does not make anything original.
If D&D decided that it wanted to change the races around so that someone could play a poop monster, a swamp creature, and a reskinned centaur I would not buy it because I have rules for Traveller and Alternity, and even Star Frontiers. I can use those to play the alien races. I don't need elf, dwarf, halfling analogs. Give me the standard legacy races in D&D and I will decide from there which ones to include or which new ones to make. Most of the attempts at so called originality are simply reskinned elves, dwarves, and vampires. none of them are more exciting than the standard.
There's a reason the mythic inspired races have lasted this long in D&D.
If on the other hand I wish to explore originality as you have, it is an easy matter for me to pick and choose monsters from the bestiary or give another race a new look, and not allow elves, dwarves, etc in the game I run. However, I do not want to have the standard core races replaced by adopting the 'optional' races as standard. I like to leave the races you choose to use as 'options'. That way you maintain your artistic integrity and ability to run a superior game, and I get the fantasy game I like. Laziness is not at all a part of it.
Yeah the Zebrataur is unique. They aren't just reclusive forest dwellers like the usual centaurs. They occupy a difference space, have different weapon tech to the normal centaurs, have different neighbours to the usual fey or elves. They are their own distinct group. If I could convey a point most centrally, that would be it--escaping fantasy norms is to create material different to the norm, more unusual to what has become the standard, the expected, the common fare. Sci fi treads more varied ground than fantasy, and this is unfortunate! A missed opportunity.
What got me on this path, is playing a lot of Dark Souls and wanting to build a world around that, and reading Yahtzee's piece on elves and dwarves not being essential to fantasy. It is a good read, I'd recommend it. He did indeed get me thinking on common fantasy staples and how tiring and expected fantasy can become. Yes it is exciting in the vein that Conan's adventures are exciting, but much of the old and same Tolkien settings and races gets transplanted over, all the time.
I've probably been exposed to too much fantasy, the crux of the problem laid bare. I was playing dnd when a wee lad, have and still play plenty of fantasy com and ps3 games, I've seen it all; and I've seen a lot of repetition. The elves, the dwarves, the standard race ports, the common things brought over. Which makes me want to make something different for the games I run. Completely changing the racial make-up of the world is a good start. Because when you take out the gnomes, the halflings, the elves and the dwarves, you can fill the fantasy world with something else in their spaces.
Like:
The boggards: not a violent tribal people, they have been subject to forced civilisation from multiple groups now. First the Catarinan humans, and now the Lizardfolk in their stage of Enlightenment and conquest. Given the recent wars the boggards are starting to revive the old boggard ways, cooperating with the lizardfolk but also interested in their old languages, actvities and sense of being. Many often pursue lives of adventure outside of their old home territories and away from the order of the lizardfolk; they have a slightly soured reputation as adventurers and at times bandits. Historically they were the first to fashion and then master pottery, boggard pottery is well appreciated by aesthetes still.
This is just one example of fleshing out and expanding upon the tribal/aboriginal archetype which the boggard normally is. There is no need to focus more on elves, and their representation, what they are doing, how beautiful they are, because the boggards can get some attention. I have also resisted copy pasting the cultural entities of China/Japan/the Middle East/France/the Italian city states, because I have seen that done many times before. When fantasy does that, it is getting lazy, it is not creating new states and entities. So, as an example, I throw in the lizardfolk/lizardmen, make them of a large and small variety, give them technocratic city states, emphasise the beliefs of their culture and how they differ to the humans--the lizards are bearing their form of enlightenment, not so much their religion, instead their idea of rationally ordering and understanding the world, their hierarchy of philosopher saints etc. The lizardfolk have their own weapon tech, they fight different to others, they rule different to others, their cavalry are giant grasshoppers.
There is a lot that can be done, without just borrowing the same old things. Fantasy can have life breathed into it. Talking to some young players that have recently encountered fantasy though, they don't feel the need for this yet. They aren't tired of what is common. My youngish players (I'm hosting a new batch this time around, not taking samples from my older gaming group) were a little startled and cast adrift in the woods with this new setting, with it being non-Tolkien, but now they get it, are also adding to the world, and are having a lot of fun playing weird creatures and humans from new cultures.
That is also something to note in closing. When you don't have a Tolkienian world, or a standard fantasy setting all nice and ordered and expected (and all written down in a world book) the players have more freedom to make their characters too. A human swordswoman can have the skin colour of tea and dark green hair and that is just fine. As the settings go on we steadily add more to her people, more details and the world develops from there. Forget the idea of Anglo, forget Chinese or Japanese, Arab or African. Make new terms, new places, new people... and leave elves and dwarves behind. Yeeeehaaa!
"Most of the attempts at so called originality are simply reskinned elves, dwarves, and vampires. none of them are more exciting than the standard."
We can do better, we don't have to just reskin elves. Dms and players, we can be real creators, and make them not only more exciting than what currently exists, but with the novelty of also being new, and potentially more to them. Last night I re-imagined the nagas, and my players were excited and a little scared of these very strange beings. Ancient guardians of old places, delightfully evil, frighteningly sexual, but in a bizarre way, reasonable too (the players negotiated with them and passed through their territory). If none of the new species are more exciting than the standard, you are not doing it right, and have not gone far enough.
