why all modern settings feel the same? dnd, warhammer, magic the gathering, world of darkness all these IPs owned by big companies and their setting feel the same in practice despite being different on paper. things that were different in the 90s are now samey. you have copy-pasting isekai and books. why is this and how do you avoid it in your own setting?
>90sFar too late.Go back to the 70s and rediscover the truly wonderful realm of fantasy, in the original third-party setting.Welcome home.
i dont believe you actually hold these views but rather you just wanted to post an image of a witch with large knockersto be clear i would rather just have a witch with large knockers thread than a blatant bait post
>>98360842I divorced myself from Tolkien and all the tropes that goes along with it. There are no elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, or some all powerful evil. In fact, I did away with most creatures that exist in our world. Whatever I can find in typical fantasy, will not exist in my setting. Of course, in some sense, things are still the same. It depends on how general you want to make your categories. I also refuse to lean on real world cultures and tropes to build the nations of that world. There is nothing to emulate European medieval societies, nothing to copy paste Japanese Shogunates, etc. All of that shit has been done, so it goes out the window. We'll see how it pans out in the end. But like you, OP, I ma just tired of everything being samey. I want to deliver something new to my players. But it's hard. Often I just feel like I'm doing picrel. Also, building a new system from scratch is tricky and takes a lot of time.
>>98360938>no tolkienthis is not the reason why modern fantasy sucks tho. plenty of 90s fantasy is based on old sci-fi/fantasy works and steel feel distinctive from one another. if anything modern IPs feel like they're not even the same genre anymore. but i commend you going full original route
>>98360842Because you only engage with the most broadly popular versions of said franchises, the ones that have been meticulously crafted to be mildly appealing to as many people as possible. This is happening because the companies that makes your entertainment are chasing here & now profit over any semblance of sustainability. Every single possible corner is being cut, the strict goal is to wring out as much profit per unit of effort, which is happening because creatives in every creative industry have been, at this point, replaced with soulless moneymen, who at best dislike the creative process and all the positions involved in it. They want safe and boring. Note that this is the inevitable future all creative works.We can also just post witches with big tits, I guess.
>>98360938>in his attempt to distance himself from it, he merely lives as an inversion of itsad!
>>98360842
>>98360842>>98360856>>98361153Well first, let's get this out of the way...
>>98360842>feelI could never explain to you why you think a knuckle to the arm is enough to tear up about, when I've been beaten, burned, and scorned my whole life.Make a topic about something substantial.
>>98361179>implying that not-category is automatically inverse categoryYou have too many chromosomes.
The function of a setting is to act as a vehicle for playing the game. And since it is a role playing game, a function of the game is for people to pretend to be inhabitants of the setting. If the setting distances itself too far from a shared knowledge base, it will become a disfunctional vehicle as the players will no longer know how to ride it.
>>98361507Autistic post.
Market forces make everything the same eventually
The LotR movies revived Tolkien and a lot of his sensibilities for the mainstream in the 00's, a /v/ example of this is comparing Morrowind to Oblivion
>>98360848I like 60's and 70's fantasy that feels like a hippie's hangover
>>98360938>I also refuse to lean on real world cultures and tropes to build the nations of that world. There is nothing to emulate European medieval societies, nothing to copy paste Japanese Shogunates, etc. All of that shit has been done, so it goes out the window.I actually like that part of fantasy and always found it more appealing than elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs etc. Which I guess makes me understand while people love the same elves and dwarves again and again,they want something different but deep down still similar. So I enjoy people just taking historical settings and cultures and just messing with them bit, "truly original" settings can feel like nonsense without some grounding to me. So yeah, random bullshit.The name fantasy means anything you want, but in practice there's always a little bit of callbacks to real world culture and history. At least, that's fantasy for me.
>>98361179An inversion of Tolkien is Moorcock, and even then Elric is more of an answer to Conan. That's not what that anon is doing. If anything he's trying to tap into what some pulp writers were attempting to do before Tolkien even penned the Hobbit.
>>98360842Why would I want a game setting to feel unique?
>>98360842>why all modern settings feel the same?They all draw from the same inspiration and are trying to appeal to the same audience.
>>98360842Traditional games?
>>98360842>writers tend to get all their influence from extant fantasy works>publishers tend to discourage deviating from the standard formula, because it's what people expect (and they expect it because it's all that they find published)>end result is an incestuous doom spiral of increasingly diluted tolkien knockoffs
>>98362577>>98362546I'm with you guys on that. Having some conceptual anchor is actually really nice because it fills in blanks the creator couldn't and shouldn't be bothered to come up with. >>98360964Yeah, also agree. Whatever is going on right now is like ten degrees of simulacra divorced from the original to the point that is feels paper thin.
>>98360842it's all just trend chasing and circular referencing that degenerates the message behind the original works into a meaningless aesthetic.>how do you avoid it in your own settingread a lot outside of the area of influence of tolkien. think about what and why you find something interesting and what the meaning behind it is to you. do not poison your own thought process by reading critics up front. engaging afterwards is okay. explore topics outside of reading to find out what you like. the more autistic the better like, how stars function or the history of sweets. think of how to put together all the things you like into your world.>tolkien liked languages, germanic myth, christianity>lotr turned out to be a mix of that>oda likes a ton of different quirky things>one piece turned out to be a mix of that>martin likes history and aristocratic politics>a song of ice and fire turned out to be based on his favourite history work or somethingyou could take the exact same inspirations as tolkien and come up with something completely different due to not being the same person as tolkien and liking other things about the original work. you can't come up with something completely different by taking his work as direct inspiration.the worst thing you can do is reference pop culture things. they themselves are watered down references already, sacrificing the original meaning for something else. and that something else is very often some genre defining work, for example>lotr for fantasy>foundation for space opera>neuromancer for cyberpunkwhich is why everything feels the same. it is all based on the same originator or a reference to it.
>>98360964>>98362904I would argue that, given the significant role played by players, it’s can still be worth moving your setting away from obvious Tolkienesque elements even if you’re personally balls-deep in the Silmarillion and have written peer-reviewed articles on Tolkien’s literary sources. If your players are more used to the pop culture Tolkien derivatives, that’s still how they’ll interact with the setting.
Some people aren't creative or unique, so when they try to be they just end up making something that's weird for the sake of weird and feels forced. If all those people like is generic fantasy, than they should stick to making it. Nothing wrong with that.
>>98363000Hideki Anno once said that you can't just be into anime only, you need to have a wider range of interests. It's advice to take when making anything that isn't just a copy of something else.
>>98363112Miyazaki's complaint with the state of the industry was pretty similar, with people trying to write human interaction without the real-world social experience to do so believably: people making anime/manga/LNs tend to only be influenced by other anime/manga/LNs rather than actual IRL experience or imagination, so the whole creative industry ends up stagnating and just endlessly rehashing the same old structures/content/archetypes
>>98363202Just look at isekai. A lot of them are just regurgitating JRPG's or each other.
>>98360842>dnd, warhammer, magic the gathering, world of darkness all these IPs owned by big companies and their setting feel the same in practicehytnpdnd? If they feel the same in practice it will be because of your practices. >dndstop using premade settings and anything wotc made, use the older material designed to make your own setting. >warhammer Actually read the fluff. Play the wargame. >mtgGive up on that one, its permafucked. Hitting yourself in the balls with a hammer is more enjoyable. >WoD in practices feels like mtg ... probably get your head checked about that one.
>>98363112>>98363202>>98363267For an interesting perspective, LLMs basically proved them right. We can now see what you get if something is composed solely from having consumed other extant media in the same genre or format, and it's utter dreck.
>>98362552>the person who knows feelings vary depending on the individual is autisticNope.
>>98363202Miyazaki was commenting not on writing but animation. Literally, "you need to watch people moving in order to convey that movement with your drawings.
>>98362546>The function of a setting is to act as a vehicle for playing the game.Not really.A game can still be played even with a rudimentary, bare bones setting. The mechanics of the game are what make it a game, or a lack of mechanics (or disregard for them) is what makes it collaborative storytelling (which was banned from /tg/ about a decade ago).>a function of the game is for people to pretend to be inhabitants of the settingWhat you described is role adoption, which is indeed a form of roleplay through improvisational theater, but isn't the only form of roleplay. Deciding the character and behavior of someone who isn't oneself is roleplay, and any action made by a player of a fantasy game is automatically a decision of character or behavior of someone who isn't himself, given that fantasy characters can't ever exist. There are other reasons as well, but this is the main aspect that guarantees the player's identity is separate from his character's.>distance makes it dysfunctionalThen how did the audiences of the very first fantasy stories ever enjoy them?By this logic, they wouldn't have known what to think, and wouldn't have entertained such ridiculousness.
>>98363456Iirc one of the qoutes was "the problem with anime today is that it's made by people who hate looking at other people"
>>98363603Exactly. It's entirely literal: you need to look at people to draw them.
>>98360964>this is not the reasonI know, but that is what I have done about it, or my reaction so to speak. I didn't want the same vibe, the same setting, or the same ol' conflicts. I did not want the game to be what I have already GMd for 35 years. I am sick of Tolkien.>>98362577>"truly original" settings can feel like nonsenseI know, trying to avoid it. But an interesting property of trying to grow your cultures organically is that, even when trying to avoid our world's cultural expressions, the similarities are still there. For example: If a culture realizes castles are good for defence, then you end up with something resembling feudalism anyway. It's just a really easy way to organize land ownership.
>>98363000>think about what and why you find something interesting and what the meaning behind it is to you. do not poison your own thought process by reading critics up frontCare to elaborate? Not that I disagree but you mean that you should engage with fiction directly instead of secondary sources like critics?
>>98364118I think they mean forming your own opinions on things before seeing what opinions others have given
>>98360938It's all furries, isn't it?
>>98360842They put no care into suspension of disbelief and instead focus on power fantasy/escapism. There's no dopamine hit without struggle or stakes, which have been whittled away at with every new edition in an attempt at emulating video games instead of emulating actually fighting a vampire by quantifying it numerically.
Does magic even do its own settings anymore
>>98364118my idea is that you should engage with the fiction before you do so with secondary sources. i don't think exchanging ideas and rethinking your own interpretation of stories is bad. but i do think that knowing interpretations of the story or parts of the story could hinder you from viewing it from your own standpoint. kind of like you would not want to watch a movie before reading the book it is based upon, since it could hinder you from developing your own imagination and sense of the world.Broadening your mental catalogue of stories you know will enable you to more easily compare similarities and differences. It also enables you to get a feeling for what you like yourself and what you do not like. If you know what you like you can seek out more things that you do like, I'd recommend challenging yourself regularly though to no stagnate with your growth. By having a larger catalogue and an easier time comparing you are able to come up with interpretations that others just might not have. There is no authority on finding meaning in things. The people out there have world views of their own, do not let them influence yours so easily. Sometimes they know a lot more than you, but you will find that most of the time there is just large mismatches in the knowledge you and they have. So interpreting something differently happens naturally.
>>98360842>IPs owned by big companiesbig companies are not run by creatives but by executives and shareholders, to whom the whole creative process is just a black box that converts investment capital into marketable productsthey have zero interest in actual creativity, just chase whatever buzzwords they consider to be popular at the time, and ensure that as little as possible is spent on actually making the productcase in point, just look at the AAA video game industry
>>98365797This. Making fantasy isn't writing an encyclopedia.
>>98365797Based and true. Thank for your answer anon
>>98360938ok so what DO you have?
>>98363112Anno also spent 20 years remaking a hit show into series of crappy fan fiction movies that have a white filter over everything
>>98365662last 5 years had the following new planes>strixhaven>bloomburrow>duskmourn>edge of eternitiesbut there has been a ton of revisits to old ones throughout
>>98365892True, but to be fair small pool of non-anime references is the least problem with Rebuild.
>>98366005true and desu I agree with your overall point and love NGE but I just hate the rebuild 3 and 4 and will never get over it
>>98365892It pays the bills
>>98365892he is a two faced snake and always has been
>>98364753No furries, no. Sorry anon. Try /b/?>>98365881I'm protective of the world I'm creating, so I'm not sharing. I know, that is convenient of me when I am making the argument that I have moved away from Tolkien. It is what it is though.
>>98365892He was right and the proof is the original show compared to everything after
>>98360842>dnd, warhammer, magic the gathering, world of darknessNone of these settings seem the same. Also, d&d isn't a setting, it's a game that has several settings.
>>98369915>he lived long enough to become his own villain
>>98363112>>98365892To be fair, Anno IS autistic about several other things, it's why being able to do shit like Shin Godzilla actually revitalized him.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB12HNNDDcc
>>98372021Well yeah, being a villain >>98366493
>>98370066D&D isn't a game; its resolutions rely on rulings based on whim, not structured rules.
>>98369596>I have absolutely nothing but I want to pretend I'm special
>>98374670Soccer isn't a game, its end point is decided on the whims of the refs, not on structured rules.
>>98360842What are some fantasy settings that actually break the mold in a way that works out? I haven’t watched Avatar since I was a kid, but at least at the time I’m pretty sure it was ground-breaking.
>>98372114That's still otaku stuff, but more than just anime yeah. Eva had a lot of stuff he was into. Ultraman references and inspiration, he was a ww2 autist so the main trio have last names taken from IJN ships, he was always into psychology so even gunbuster had a character named after Freud, he once talked about how he liked reading romance novels written by and for women too.
>>98375649I still unironically like AtLA and consider it unique desu. No other "magic" system still feels like bending to me, I still really like Chinese inspired settings and wuxia but they're not gonna have random Inuits or its other mixture of cultures or ostrich horses and of course bending, and even though everything is inspired by anime since then, atla was inspired by a very specific segment of it.bumpfag likes abusing it though
>>98375649More people should try playing Avatar Legends>Nooo, you can't like PbtA games!It's fine. Even I'll admit that not every part of how it works mechanically suits everyone, and wrapping your head around it isn't always super intuitive, but it's a legitimately good game.
>>98375713I legitimately think an avatar game should have been in a 4e styled system, pbta just doesn't reach the level of autism enough for me that bending would require. But I'll give it a shot.
>>98375750>pbta just doesn't reach the level of autism enough for menta PBTA is a different kind of autism, its for people who need social results to be clearly defined and for procedures to be followed more than the kind that needs granular focus. There's some overlap but they're largely for a different kind of spaz. >t. spaz
>>98360842because "unique" takes a backseat to "good" and the more time that passes/stuff comes out the easier it is to make "good" and the harder it is to make "unique"
>>98361153To be fair finding anything new or unique that isn't already a million dollar franchise is really fucking hard. Those moneymen sure do love paying off Google to bump their slop to the top and then allow endless pages of AI slop after. The dead internet theory is real and the moneymen murdered it to force you to buy from them.Then the communities of anything interesting somehow always get infested with trannies with their bullshit and it's just a mess.Ultimately you're right and it is up to people to really look for diamonds in rough but that doesn't mean that it's that simple. People should understand that there are other people going through great lengths at great expenditure to prevent them from finding new content.
>>98360842The reason many fantasy feel the same is everyone copies LOTR, D&D, WOW, and maybe some isekai mixed in. Then add one or two things to be "different." However when their setting is made they don't have anything. It's just copy and paste ideas. Not how nations, people, etc would work. For example, you have people trying to make elves vegans for some reason. The people who hunt with bows and were well known hunters. Now unable to eat anything but plants? Dwarves and Elves hate each other for what reason if they don't live near each other? Or the classic liberal art college idea of making every town, village and region have diversity. Which we all know just means add more non-whites in it.The idea is most people that are making these modern settings are often tourists or force to push these ideas cause they if they make anything for real fans they're blacklisted and banned. (Though they are often banned just for being a white guy if they weren't grandfather in anyways.)
>>98375967Pretty much, especially when their unique is "X but with a different look or one random feature removed." Doesn't help when they are pushed woke shit into classic archtypes, races, etc that often don't fit and can even ruin a character.
>>98374857>"soccer"The lines are drawn before any session is started, the goals are placed before any session is started, the rules of how points are scored are established before any session is started, and when someone says "we're playing "soccer"" there's an almost entirely universal idea of what to expect during play. The referee is only there to penalize violations and signal goals.Meanwhile, D&D is run differently for every table, for every campaign, for every session, and the rulings change mid-session. A newbie expecting to play as a talking bear or to suplex a dragon is almost always going to be disappointed, even if he asks for permission to do something cool."Soccer" is a game, because there are consistent rules, a consistent structure, and a universal idea of what to expect before starting a game. D&D isn't a game because anything [the DM wants] goes. The DM is there to rule the table, and anyone who doesn't like it "can find a new group".
>>98382279>The referee is only there to penalize violations and signal goals.lolSo how is game end decided? When the ref feels like it?
>>98382279Most soccer isn't played on a regulation field with a full team, jerseys, professional referees, and a crowd anon. Even most soccer practice games aren't played with 2 full teams.I used to play soccer at recess with 4 other people and a small softball fence as a goal and I doubt most kids could get a teacher to ban all students from the yard so they could play soccer on regulation fields uninterrupted.
>>98384267dogshit HFY post
>dnd, warhammer, magic the gathering, world of darknessone of these things is not like the others
