Why am I so bad at writing fantasy and cyberpunk settings?I feel just fine and comfortable writing scifi. I am a physics nerd so I have a decent knowledge of how space travel and other stuff should work, what's realistic and what's bullshit. I enjoy writing settings related to history, politics, crime and espionage... but when it comes to fantasy, I'm never satisfied with what I create. My countries are an analog of real-life cultures and feel uncreative. The magic system usually feels either too high-magic bullshit or not fun enough to play practically. Races? Don't even get me started.Same with cyberpunk settings, they just feel like generic, uninspired crap.What can I do? Maybe it's because I didn't watch enough films or played games to get fully acquainted with the vibe
write a sci fi setting but like on one single planet. Once you´re done, remove the tech and devolve them. Change the word "alien" to "monster".
>>96649965I already have, but it doesn't have aliens. It'll end up being unrealistic bullshit, imo. Thanks for the advice though
>>96649921Because you are a lousy shitposter that likes to reuse stale memesIn other words: because you're a retard
>>96649921>another "wokes ruined elfgames" threadAre you bored yet?
>>96649921Your problem lies exactly here:>I am a physics nerdyou're autistautists always write boring settingsALWAYS
>>96649921>what's realistic and what's bullshitDont fall into the trap of making everything "realistic" its fantasy for a reason. Apply realism to a few aspects of your setting like politics or space travel and make the rest as fun as possible.
>>96649921You don't insert your fetishes enough so you end up making something that doesn't inspire you, and, by extension, anyone
>>96649921Historically fantasy is for exploring the dreamlike, abstract, conceptual and alien. We have a bad habbit of trying to "mature" our fantasies by making them behave like reality, but you should never start with that, and should only do it at the end if you think it actually needs it to be good.
>>96649921The fact that you chose to save this image is indicative of the type of person you are. I would encourage you to not "write sci-fi." In fact, I'm willing to bet money that you haven't actually written shit, just have a bunch of ideas floating around that maybe you wrote a line or two about. Regardless, explaining anything more would be casting pearls before swine. Look at your image. Consider what it's saying. Consider what it's not saying. Consider the meta-message. REALLY consider it. Then kys.
>>96650637>>96650649>>96653675Go back you whiny faggotard
>>96653675Sorry I triggered you go back to your safespace
>>96649921Anon, I was in the same boat.I don't know shit about fantasy, I just use random tables and whatever words happen to be in my head currently.But in cyberpunk, it's pretty easy to do the exactly this:>Pick a tech, any tech>Make it better>Let assholes have it too>Have said tech develop into shitty version and cool version>Repeat N+1 timesAnd you'll be done.Add any flavors you may want.I'm currently running a campaign where 3 different AI fuck around with PC's, because 'Just one God-Like AI isn't enough'.
>>96649921>My countries are an analog of real-life cultures and feel uncreative. The magic system usually feels either too high-magic bullshit or not fun enough to play practically. Races? Don't even get me started.The way to cheat on countries and races is to take 3-5 countries or 3-5 peoples and combine aspects of them all. Feel free to reuse countries, just make sure you use a different aspect.For example:The Kingdom of Combinica is a large island nation. Best-known for their semi-divine Sun King who rules a highly-centralized bureaucracy, the nation is primarily known for their textile industry, with Combinican cloth known especially for the bright colors it comes in. The rich weavers', fullers', tailors' guilds exist in an uneasy state of rivalry with the country's many minor nobles and prince-bishops. If you have any inspiration during this, any idea of how things could riff off each other, go for it!Give everyone Cambodian-sounding names. Or names from a fantasy name generator. Family name first is an easy way to seem exotic.England+France+Netherlands+HRE. It's not the most original thing in the world, but it's not a direct rip-off of any particular group.Meanwhile, the Combinicans can always have pale skin, black hair, and green eyes (or maybe orange eyes which are the unique birthright of the Combinican people), they can be a short, wiry folk who love drinking fermented sheep's milk (from all the sheep they have for wool for their looms). The large number of well-off guildsmen and the status of Portberg as a major trade hub mean that Combinican food is known for being heavily spiced, sometimes to the point that foreigners cam barely eat it.
>>96655327Also obviously they eat a shit-ton of mutton and fish. Maybe their national dish is a heavily-spiced mutton/fish curry known for causing foreigners to throw up, at which point everyone laughs and drinks more of their disgusting sheep kumis.
>>96653675Certified prancing la-la homo man post
>>96655327>Family name first is an easy way to seem exoticReal hardcore niggas do patronymics
>>96649921I dunno. Maybe ask the worldbuilding general. Those guys can help you.
>>96649921Read history. If you read history you will understand that 99.9% of the "Medieval Fantasy" is not even Medieval, that a lot of tropes from "Medieval Fantasy" are really "Renaissance Fantasy", or even "Fantasy American Wild West" with a coat of paint over it.
>>96653749>>96654203>>96655358/pol/sharties malding as per usual.
>>96649965Nah, keep the aliens
>>96649921This would be a funnier comic if the dwarf said the same thing in all three panels and someone else got the Critical Reddit line.
>>96649921Just take a Sci fi planet, put it through an apocalypse, fast forward by 2000 years, and set your game in the civilizations growing up in the ruins.
>>96649921If you're STEM brained, then your bias makes sense, because you can write good speculative sci fi about what dramatic situations can technology X afford in an optimistic enough way for the tech to still be considered fun.However, Cyberpunk is more about how technology affects people's personal lives socially and getting into the pathos of having your life directly and ambiently ruined by technology, and Fantasy leans way harder into traditional moral narratives, archetypal mythological structures, and metaphysical concerns.For a bridge between STEM brain and fantasy, I would highly recommend you read "The Language of Creation" by Matthieu Pageau. It's basically an explication of the "laws of physics" of how traditional worldviews worked. The best fantasy writers have been people thoroughly educated in ancient myths and their cosmological structures.
After swallowing Metis Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera. Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache.He was in such pain that he ordered someone (either Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares, or Palaemon, depending on the sources examined) to cleave his head open with the labrys, the double-headed Minoan axe. Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed.The "gods were awestruck by Athena's appearance and even Helios, the god of the sun, stopped his chariot in the sky. Athena, born a daughter instead of the son of the prophecy Hesiod described, never successfully overthrew her father Zeus as the ruler of the cosmos; but Homer' Iliad tells of an attempted overthrow, in which she, Hera and Poseidon conspired to overpower Zeus and tie him in bonds. It is only because of the Nereid Thetis, who summoned Briareus, one of the Hecatoncheires, to Mount Olympus, that the other gods abandon their plans (out of fear for Briareus).
