RuneQuest has recently set foot down the "cultural generational" thing that Jason mentions, but I suspect that the vast majority of RQ gamers are still in the "adventurers going on adventures" model
Just as heroes changed from being myopic, entitled thugs in Ancient Greece to the inspirational and moral superheroes from comic books and the big screens of today, so too has Chaosium updated Runequest, Call of Cthulhu and even Pendragon to be much more open and accommodating to people from a wider audience. I especially like how the Orlanthi went from being Celtic-Germanic Vikings (as shown on King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages) to something that's much more unique and distinct, like a mish-mash of Late Bronze Age, early Iron Age historical cultures. Basically a combination of heroic Mycenaean Greeks with Hallstatt Celts and pre-Roman Italians, with some added Hittite influences and some bits from the Rigveda. Fantasy still has a long way to go to be more innovative and different than how it was in the past but it has made some good strides in good directions. Proud to say that Chaosium is a part of that change, especially with Rivers of London!
> I especially like how the Orlanthi went from being Celtic-Germanic Vikings (as shown on King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages) to something that's much more unique and distinct, like a mish-mash of Late Bronze Age, early Iron Age historical cultures. This reads: "I like how you switched out oranges for pears".
Big problem with steering more towards a lighter genre is that you lose a lot of the rub that you get from the darker settings which makes conflict easier. Not that you can't have a campier game, or one with a more positive slant, but just take a look at the market and the big IPs and even they have darker sides where they can get their conflict from. Harry Potter has Voldamort (SP) Star Trek has the threat of war from more militant cultures. I think the Superhero genre is the true bastion where that is safe, but they have never been the leader in the market, and I just don't see any genre toppling fantasy, and when it comes to fantasy people what their grit, and the closest you get to a more positive spin is in high fantasy.
I respectfully disagree on one count. Although lighter settings has less fuel for conflict, this also makes any possible conflict much more significant. In many darker settings betrayal and deliberate bloodshed are so common, I feel that the audience becomes somewhat used to them, unless they're depicted in truly shocking fashion. For example, I know a lot of people that were shocked by the "Red Wedding" in Game of Thrones, but more from the amount of concentrated brutality than anything else. A lot of viewers knew that it was coming, just not the scale. Meanwhile, in more light-hearted settings an active betrayal or a conflict, however small, rocks the boat in much more effective fashion. The final chapters in the Lord of the Rings, with the Hobbits coming back to the now-ruined Shire are a good example. Nobody expected the Shire to be vulnerable because, in our minds as readers, it was the safe haven, the point of origin of the hero's journey. This made those final chapters all the more impactful.
I think I agree about Hope being the next trend in RPGs. I'm already seeing it in Indy Games: Slice of Life and especially Solarpunk. But I'm trepidatious about the Big Publishers tackling this trend because (as JD said) the big names tend to be slower to react and more conservative. I'm hopeful that they might do something akin to, for example, D&D 5e's Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel: where they had many distinct worlds/cultures. Maybe they could double-down on that and create an anthology of mini-campaigns? Something that allows different voices of hope to shine through.
When it comes to TTRPGs -- a hobby mostly revolving around printed books (though online / pdf has become rather popular, I still prefer a physical book whenever possible) -- it isn't all that surprising to me that evolution can be a bit slow. A game like Call of Cthulhu is one I came to only recently despite playing TTRPGs for two decades and reading Lovecraft way back then (and when reading his stuff for the first time, seeing that yeah the dude was really racist). Looking back at it I can see that the CofC game has changed and improved, but it's also stayed pretty much the same (hence it being quite doable to run an older edition scenario in the current edition). And heck, the swords and magic genre of DnD was fairly static for a long time -- the oxygen-stealing big name changed its math and terminology but generally stayed the same (crunchiness has varied, but I'd argue the soon-to-be-replaced current edition is still nearly as crunchy as the previous ones). It seemed like it wasn't until the 2010s (and completely beyond my radar at the time) that we started seeing real creative evolution in that genre. And of course it was _outside_ of the big name. BUT, a lot of those games are still hanging around. Dungeon World, for instance, is still "brand new" to some people just discovering it. For my group it's still a relatively "fresh" game since we've only played a smattering of it between other things and it could totally be a viable option for a new (short-ish) campaign. So, yeah, printed books don't go obsolete. You don't have to worry about whether it'll still function or if you need to update your cables or something or if the publisher still supports it (or even exists) if you just _have_ the book. And also -- as mentioned here -- sometimes just getting the time to play the "new" game can take long enough that it being "new" is more of a relative matter. It's _newer_ ... or at least it'll be new to you once you get it to the table. And I see ZERO issue with that. I actually love it, personally, since it's kind of anti-capitalist at its core. Yes, I know, not great for the companies that make the games, such as Chaosium. If not run by people who care about the hobby and have a person interest in the art of it, all the motivation would be to make games with planned obsolescence, games that _won't_ still be playable or usable in a few years. Honestly, this is the whole motivation behind the WotC debacle (which is by no means over, just gone low-profile). It's a company that has shareholders and needs to make a profit for those at the top -- just as any company, even small ones. And without some motivation to work against it's financial best interest -- motivations to actually be ethical and to take care of the TTRPG ecosystem -- it makes perfect sense to do something as self-destructive as WotC did. It's insane and yet the financial motivators lead right into it. But anyway. Yeah, genre evolutions can be slow for the reason of books have long lives and TTRPGs taking a while to play through. And so in general the genres evolve in fits and starts as a wholly new game is made and gets notoriety. And then that game is just part of the collective and it's usually not until another wholly new game makes a splash that we get another bit of evolution. Yes, from time to time an existent game will have some smaller impact of change as a whole new edition comes out that presents a novel take on what it had done before. ------------------------------------------------------------------ A genre I _want_ to see have some success in TTRPGs is Solar Punk. It was, once, new. But it's actually been around for quite a while now, at least in literature. But as a genre meant to be more hopeful and positive than Cyberpunk (or any of the -punk genres, really) it's a bit challenging to create good conflicts without straying into another genre. Not at all impossible, but challenging. I think probably the best recipe for conflict in Solar Punk is when a solar punk society comes into contact with a non-Solar Punk society. And specifically if you were to have an "underground" Solar Punk rebellion within an otherwise Cyberpunk kind of setting. I believe Hack the Planet does this to at least some extent. You have the powerful corporate-controlled society trying to crush/stop the clearly more egalitarian solar punk society because, frankly, it makes them look bad.
I think woke ttrpg themes are just a fad, but if the core players are alienated from a game then the game may not gain replacement players but may in fact end up with no players.
Nothing ruins a game and setting like modern politics, people today cannot do anything without viewing it through their modern politics and it is pure poison. I will not play any game that is infected with modern politics, there are plenty of great games already out there and because they are physical books you can still get them as they were and not have to worry about people going and trying to change the past to fit their modern political slant. The fact that people have to take existing IPs and try to change them using modern politics shows a complete lack of creativity and a complete lack of respect for the source material.
One day we might get fantasy as good as 80s fantasy.
Or it might be impossible to ever get fantasy that good again.
It´s called Warpland :)
RuneQuest has recently set foot down the "cultural generational" thing that Jason mentions, but I suspect that the vast majority of RQ gamers are still in the "adventurers going on adventures" model
Just as heroes changed from being myopic, entitled thugs in Ancient Greece to the inspirational and moral superheroes from comic books and the big screens of today, so too has Chaosium updated Runequest, Call of Cthulhu and even Pendragon to be much more open and accommodating to people from a wider audience. I especially like how the Orlanthi went from being Celtic-Germanic Vikings (as shown on King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages) to something that's much more unique and distinct, like a mish-mash of Late Bronze Age, early Iron Age historical cultures. Basically a combination of heroic Mycenaean Greeks with Hallstatt Celts and pre-Roman Italians, with some added Hittite influences and some bits from the Rigveda. Fantasy still has a long way to go to be more innovative and different than how it was in the past but it has made some good strides in good directions. Proud to say that Chaosium is a part of that change, especially with Rivers of London!
> I especially like how the Orlanthi went from being Celtic-Germanic Vikings (as shown on King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages) to something that's much more unique and distinct, like a mish-mash of Late Bronze Age, early Iron Age historical cultures.
This reads: "I like how you switched out oranges for pears".
Games develop within the groups that play them, rules like the world change to fit the needs of the play and setting.... and keep it fun.
Big problem with steering more towards a lighter genre is that you lose a lot of the rub that you get from the darker settings which makes conflict easier. Not that you can't have a campier game, or one with a more positive slant, but just take a look at the market and the big IPs and even they have darker sides where they can get their conflict from. Harry Potter has Voldamort (SP) Star Trek has the threat of war from more militant cultures. I think the Superhero genre is the true bastion where that is safe, but they have never been the leader in the market, and I just don't see any genre toppling fantasy, and when it comes to fantasy people what their grit, and the closest you get to a more positive spin is in high fantasy.
I respectfully disagree on one count.
Although lighter settings has less fuel for conflict, this also makes any possible conflict much more significant. In many darker settings betrayal and deliberate bloodshed are so common, I feel that the audience becomes somewhat used to them, unless they're depicted in truly shocking fashion. For example, I know a lot of people that were shocked by the "Red Wedding" in Game of Thrones, but more from the amount of concentrated brutality than anything else. A lot of viewers knew that it was coming, just not the scale.
Meanwhile, in more light-hearted settings an active betrayal or a conflict, however small, rocks the boat in much more effective fashion. The final chapters in the Lord of the Rings, with the Hobbits coming back to the now-ruined Shire are a good example. Nobody expected the Shire to be vulnerable because, in our minds as readers, it was the safe haven, the point of origin of the hero's journey. This made those final chapters all the more impactful.
I think I agree about Hope being the next trend in RPGs. I'm already seeing it in Indy Games: Slice of Life and especially Solarpunk. But I'm trepidatious about the Big Publishers tackling this trend because (as JD said) the big names tend to be slower to react and more conservative. I'm hopeful that they might do something akin to, for example, D&D 5e's Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel: where they had many distinct worlds/cultures. Maybe they could double-down on that and create an anthology of mini-campaigns? Something that allows different voices of hope to shine through.
Maharlika is definitely a larger than life, weird magic havinh sci fi rpg.
When it comes to TTRPGs -- a hobby mostly revolving around printed books (though online / pdf has become rather popular, I still prefer a physical book whenever possible) -- it isn't all that surprising to me that evolution can be a bit slow. A game like Call of Cthulhu is one I came to only recently despite playing TTRPGs for two decades and reading Lovecraft way back then (and when reading his stuff for the first time, seeing that yeah the dude was really racist). Looking back at it I can see that the CofC game has changed and improved, but it's also stayed pretty much the same (hence it being quite doable to run an older edition scenario in the current edition).
And heck, the swords and magic genre of DnD was fairly static for a long time -- the oxygen-stealing big name changed its math and terminology but generally stayed the same (crunchiness has varied, but I'd argue the soon-to-be-replaced current edition is still nearly as crunchy as the previous ones). It seemed like it wasn't until the 2010s (and completely beyond my radar at the time) that we started seeing real creative evolution in that genre. And of course it was _outside_ of the big name. BUT, a lot of those games are still hanging around. Dungeon World, for instance, is still "brand new" to some people just discovering it. For my group it's still a relatively "fresh" game since we've only played a smattering of it between other things and it could totally be a viable option for a new (short-ish) campaign.
So, yeah, printed books don't go obsolete. You don't have to worry about whether it'll still function or if you need to update your cables or something or if the publisher still supports it (or even exists) if you just _have_ the book.
And also -- as mentioned here -- sometimes just getting the time to play the "new" game can take long enough that it being "new" is more of a relative matter. It's _newer_ ... or at least it'll be new to you once you get it to the table. And I see ZERO issue with that. I actually love it, personally, since it's kind of anti-capitalist at its core.
Yes, I know, not great for the companies that make the games, such as Chaosium. If not run by people who care about the hobby and have a person interest in the art of it, all the motivation would be to make games with planned obsolescence, games that _won't_ still be playable or usable in a few years. Honestly, this is the whole motivation behind the WotC debacle (which is by no means over, just gone low-profile). It's a company that has shareholders and needs to make a profit for those at the top -- just as any company, even small ones. And without some motivation to work against it's financial best interest -- motivations to actually be ethical and to take care of the TTRPG ecosystem -- it makes perfect sense to do something as self-destructive as WotC did. It's insane and yet the financial motivators lead right into it.
But anyway. Yeah, genre evolutions can be slow for the reason of books have long lives and TTRPGs taking a while to play through. And so in general the genres evolve in fits and starts as a wholly new game is made and gets notoriety. And then that game is just part of the collective and it's usually not until another wholly new game makes a splash that we get another bit of evolution. Yes, from time to time an existent game will have some smaller impact of change as a whole new edition comes out that presents a novel take on what it had done before.
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A genre I _want_ to see have some success in TTRPGs is Solar Punk. It was, once, new. But it's actually been around for quite a while now, at least in literature. But as a genre meant to be more hopeful and positive than Cyberpunk (or any of the -punk genres, really) it's a bit challenging to create good conflicts without straying into another genre. Not at all impossible, but challenging. I think probably the best recipe for conflict in Solar Punk is when a solar punk society comes into contact with a non-Solar Punk society. And specifically if you were to have an "underground" Solar Punk rebellion within an otherwise Cyberpunk kind of setting. I believe Hack the Planet does this to at least some extent. You have the powerful corporate-controlled society trying to crush/stop the clearly more egalitarian solar punk society because, frankly, it makes them look bad.
I think woke ttrpg themes are just a fad, but if the core players are alienated from a game then the game may not gain replacement players but may in fact end up with no players.
Nothing ruins a game and setting like modern politics, people today cannot do anything without viewing it through their modern politics and it is pure poison. I will not play any game that is infected with modern politics, there are plenty of great games already out there and because they are physical books you can still get them as they were and not have to worry about people going and trying to change the past to fit their modern political slant. The fact that people have to take existing IPs and try to change them using modern politics shows a complete lack of creativity and a complete lack of respect for the source material.