Honestly not thrilled with the gradual reduction of all fantasy critters to hot sexy girls.
I got in an argument once with a dm who was like "yeah my succubi aren't physical incarnations of transgressive sex manifested by the real metaphysical force of evil to oppress mortals" and i was like "but bro succubi are entirely tied to the idea of a physical incarnation of transgressive sex manifested by the real metaphysical force of evil to oppress mortals. That's their whole thing. That's... like that is the text, and the subtext. Without that you're just being horny for red girls with wings." And he was all "well that's boring and cliched and no one likes alignment anyway and that's why they're just red girls with wings in my game and i am horny for them."
I genuinely don't get the drive to make every monster, including the really alien ones, just another guy (or, specifically, a sexy lady who wants to do you.) Like yeah, whatever, mythology is fucked up, dnd is fucked up, but instead of doing anything interesting to adress that a lot of people are stripping all the weirdness and the alienness out of myths and superstitions. Instead of weird goblins that poison the ore (kobolds == cobalt) you've got sexy lizard shawties who want to do you. Instead of a bizarre other who lives in the dark and dangerous parts of the world and haunts the periphery of civilized life you've got short green hotties who want to do you. Instead of a massive, alien intelligence of unfathomable age and wisdom, maybe with quasi-divine origins, dragons are just big lizards who want to do you. Instead of manifestations of evil and the harm people do to each other, supernaturally given form and intelligence and thrown up from hell to reflect humanity's violence and terror back on itself demons are just hot people with horns who want to do you.
If all the monsters have moral agency and complex inner worlds and are basically just guys living their lives then they're not monsters. Which is fine if you want to do some kind of urban fantasy thing, I guess, but where is the fantasy part of making everyone in your world someone just like you, except maybe they have blue skin or horns?
One of the neat storytelling beats with magic and gods and supernatural stuff is you can have critters that are extremely alien and weird. Like that just have goals and needs that are at complete right angles to reality. I much prefer New Weird stuff like Peridido Street Station or the background to Dishonored or even Tolkien where once you wipe the dust off the glass you realize that whatever is on the other side is fundamentally not like your world. Meanwhile there's tons of stories floating around where elves are hot girls who want to do you, and goblins are hot girls who want to do you, and werewolves blah blah blah.
Werewolves are another one that bugs me. Why have a bizarre and uncanny monster that embodies the fear agriculturalists and pastoralists have of both wolves and of strangers, that mixes in the fear of infection and contagion, that haunts the night and the moors that are inhospitable to people, in your story? That's all boring, i want hot wolf people who want to do me!
It's a whole ass thing. The last time i did a campaign i worked really hard to avert it. The hot winged demon ladies had personalities and goals and interests and friends and all that stuff that makes for an interesting and rounded character, but that was still all rooted in and constrained by their being supernatural, magical predators very literally made out of evil and fear.
Hard agree, I find it extremely dull whenever fantasy races (or non-human player characters in general, as it often happens) are just normal people with some weird physical feature that beyond its mechanical effects almost never comes up in game past the surface level.
Ultimately even in the case where they are just humans plus some feature that feature should heavily change how they relate to the world in some way, and not just in the regular dwarf/elf/hobbit stereotypes way. An elf should have an extremely different relationship to the passage of time and the seasons. That, in turn, should give them different feelings on life and death, relationships, morals, teaching, art, etc... But so often they're reduced to a caricature that might pay lip service to one or two of these changes but is otherwise just a normal arrogant person.
I can understand the appeal in having normal people with fantasy features of course. They're easier to roleplay and relate to. This makes them good for lighthearted campaigns which often need both to be fun. But I feel like in serious stories you'd be better off just dropping the fantasy races entirely if you aren't doing much with them. Human-centric fantasy can be really fun in its own right.
I admittedly also don't like having outright evil races, but I think there's better solutions that don't require making them normal people. Culture is an obvious one, and seemingly the one that D&D has mostly adopted now for Drow and the like. Giving them weird moral systems based on things that they would view as the highest good but we wouldn't is another good option.
One of the very few really good, complex, and interesting examples of an all-evil all the time species are the Orcs in Mordor: Shadow of War. They're so colorful, so weird, so unique. Among them there are different cultures and subcultures, attitudes, religious beliefs, ethnicities. Each orc has their own goals, their own style of dress, their own way of talking, their own fears and foibles. Some are scary, some are smart, some are poetic, some are friendly, some are joyous, some are cowards, and some are just weird. And they are all, every one of them, to the last Uruk, evil.
It's so well done and I honestly can't think of another story quite like it.
Absolutely.
But then again there's a reason a lot of the "core races" of stuff like DnD are very weird and problematic if they're just considered monsters.
I think we can do both. You can have a large variety of cultures, ancestries (I really like how PF2e does it), species, etc.. that are generally relatable (they don't have to be humanoid or very normal, just something you could play as and not entirely alien), which avoids the problems of treating what are often archetypes/parodies/exaggerations of existing cultures as essentialized groups with tied good/evil attributes in a very awkward moral system, and ALSO have tons of weird and alien monsters, species, creatures, etc.
I think the current tendency of revisiting the DnD canon and "races" in a very critical way is good, but I also don't like the tendency to flatten everything into sexy humanoids.
I think most of the TTRPG writing needs a lot of work tbh. A ton of stuff to critique and reimagine, and a serious lack of quality and serious worldbuilding.
Strong agree. I really like what Pathfinder 2e did with Dwarves in the Mwangi Expanse, where they've got their own unique culture that includes Kobolds and I want to say dragons within their culture as full members. It's complex, it's detailed, it's about culture rather than species essentialism.
I always tried to make my cultures multi-species to avoid the old bad D&D trope of one species per nation. People being bound together by religion and culture instead of species, and with some people occupying very strange positions ie, a Black Dragon pirate who read too many adventure books as a kid and decided being a pirate would be lots of fun and let him collect treasure and minions. If you follow the "correct" pirate script he's very honorable and predictable, but if you don't do what he wants you to do he's a giant selfish petty warrior and magician who can and will destroy you for ruining his game. He does all the tradiational dragon stuff, but in a way that differs from just hiding in a cave and stealing cattle.
Folks are often visibly intermediate between two of the classic fantasy "races", or have very striking or obviously supernatural features while retaining the normal human statline. And most cultures just kind of roll with some things, while being bigots about others - ie it doesn't matter how many limbs you have, but green eyes are a sign of racial inferiority that invites ruthless persecution.
I think a lot of it is my training as an Anthropologist. I love and am fascinated with culture, and my idea of a cool fantasy world is one full of fantastic cultures that are clearly shaped and defined by the magic and other-worldly factors of their lives.
Fantasy of olde: I am powerful and potent and will triumph over alien creatures and discover lost and unknown riches and knowledge instead of my mundane existence reproducing my class.
Fantasy now: I will be discovered by alien creatures and love & be loved by them. I will live a mundane existence reproducing my class.
Fantasy now: I will be discovered by alien creatures and love & be loved by them. I will live a mundane existence reproducing my class.
Also fantasy now: I will do a capitalism among the alien creatures and manipulate their economy in a way that gives me unlimited access to everything I want.
There are few things less fantastic to me than "what if le hot feeemale but pointed ears and maybe a silly language quirk" pandering cliches. It inspires nothing in me, just... boredom now. World of Warcraft and its consequences or something.
Likewise, a very similar "sex sells, so keep selling sex everywhere at all times" capitalist drive made the concept of "isekai" its own self perpetuating weeb meme: it doesn't have to be about being the bestest bideo bame boy that wins sex trophies and is the nice slave owner, but that's where we are now for the majority of the industry's output in that subgenre. What was once associated with, say, The Neverending Story is now primarily in a very sad pandering place.
Honestly not thrilled with the gradual reduction of all fantasy critters to hot sexy girls.
I got in an argument once with a dm who was like "yeah my succubi aren't physical incarnations of transgressive sex manifested by the real metaphysical force of evil to oppress mortals" and i was like "but bro succubi are entirely tied to the idea of a physical incarnation of transgressive sex manifested by the real metaphysical force of evil to oppress mortals. That's their whole thing. That's... like that is the text, and the subtext. Without that you're just being horny for red girls with wings." And he was all "well that's boring and cliched and no one likes alignment anyway and that's why they're just red girls with wings in my game and i am horny for them."
I genuinely don't get the drive to make every monster, including the really alien ones, just another guy (or, specifically, a sexy lady who wants to do you.) Like yeah, whatever, mythology is fucked up, dnd is fucked up, but instead of doing anything interesting to adress that a lot of people are stripping all the weirdness and the alienness out of myths and superstitions. Instead of weird goblins that poison the ore (kobolds == cobalt) you've got sexy lizard shawties who want to do you. Instead of a bizarre other who lives in the dark and dangerous parts of the world and haunts the periphery of civilized life you've got short green hotties who want to do you. Instead of a massive, alien intelligence of unfathomable age and wisdom, maybe with quasi-divine origins, dragons are just big lizards who want to do you. Instead of manifestations of evil and the harm people do to each other, supernaturally given form and intelligence and thrown up from hell to reflect humanity's violence and terror back on itself demons are just hot people with horns who want to do you.
If all the monsters have moral agency and complex inner worlds and are basically just guys living their lives then they're not monsters. Which is fine if you want to do some kind of urban fantasy thing, I guess, but where is the fantasy part of making everyone in your world someone just like you, except maybe they have blue skin or horns?
One of the neat storytelling beats with magic and gods and supernatural stuff is you can have critters that are extremely alien and weird. Like that just have goals and needs that are at complete right angles to reality. I much prefer New Weird stuff like Peridido Street Station or the background to Dishonored or even Tolkien where once you wipe the dust off the glass you realize that whatever is on the other side is fundamentally not like your world. Meanwhile there's tons of stories floating around where elves are hot girls who want to do you, and goblins are hot girls who want to do you, and werewolves blah blah blah.
Werewolves are another one that bugs me. Why have a bizarre and uncanny monster that embodies the fear agriculturalists and pastoralists have of both wolves and of strangers, that mixes in the fear of infection and contagion, that haunts the night and the moors that are inhospitable to people, in your story? That's all boring, i want hot wolf people who want to do me!
It's a whole ass thing. The last time i did a campaign i worked really hard to avert it. The hot winged demon ladies had personalities and goals and interests and friends and all that stuff that makes for an interesting and rounded character, but that was still all rooted in and constrained by their being supernatural, magical predators very literally made out of evil and fear.
Hard agree, I find it extremely dull whenever fantasy races (or non-human player characters in general, as it often happens) are just normal people with some weird physical feature that beyond its mechanical effects almost never comes up in game past the surface level.
Ultimately even in the case where they are just humans plus some feature that feature should heavily change how they relate to the world in some way, and not just in the regular dwarf/elf/hobbit stereotypes way. An elf should have an extremely different relationship to the passage of time and the seasons. That, in turn, should give them different feelings on life and death, relationships, morals, teaching, art, etc... But so often they're reduced to a caricature that might pay lip service to one or two of these changes but is otherwise just a normal arrogant person.
I can understand the appeal in having normal people with fantasy features of course. They're easier to roleplay and relate to. This makes them good for lighthearted campaigns which often need both to be fun. But I feel like in serious stories you'd be better off just dropping the fantasy races entirely if you aren't doing much with them. Human-centric fantasy can be really fun in its own right.
I admittedly also don't like having outright evil races, but I think there's better solutions that don't require making them normal people. Culture is an obvious one, and seemingly the one that D&D has mostly adopted now for Drow and the like. Giving them weird moral systems based on things that they would view as the highest good but we wouldn't is another good option.
One of the very few really good, complex, and interesting examples of an all-evil all the time species are the Orcs in Mordor: Shadow of War. They're so colorful, so weird, so unique. Among them there are different cultures and subcultures, attitudes, religious beliefs, ethnicities. Each orc has their own goals, their own style of dress, their own way of talking, their own fears and foibles. Some are scary, some are smart, some are poetic, some are friendly, some are joyous, some are cowards, and some are just weird. And they are all, every one of them, to the last Uruk, evil.
It's so well done and I honestly can't think of another story quite like it.
Absolutely. But then again there's a reason a lot of the "core races" of stuff like DnD are very weird and problematic if they're just considered monsters.
I think we can do both. You can have a large variety of cultures, ancestries (I really like how PF2e does it), species, etc.. that are generally relatable (they don't have to be humanoid or very normal, just something you could play as and not entirely alien), which avoids the problems of treating what are often archetypes/parodies/exaggerations of existing cultures as essentialized groups with tied good/evil attributes in a very awkward moral system, and ALSO have tons of weird and alien monsters, species, creatures, etc.
I think the current tendency of revisiting the DnD canon and "races" in a very critical way is good, but I also don't like the tendency to flatten everything into sexy humanoids.
I think most of the TTRPG writing needs a lot of work tbh. A ton of stuff to critique and reimagine, and a serious lack of quality and serious worldbuilding.
Strong agree. I really like what Pathfinder 2e did with Dwarves in the Mwangi Expanse, where they've got their own unique culture that includes Kobolds and I want to say dragons within their culture as full members. It's complex, it's detailed, it's about culture rather than species essentialism.
I always tried to make my cultures multi-species to avoid the old bad D&D trope of one species per nation. People being bound together by religion and culture instead of species, and with some people occupying very strange positions ie, a Black Dragon pirate who read too many adventure books as a kid and decided being a pirate would be lots of fun and let him collect treasure and minions. If you follow the "correct" pirate script he's very honorable and predictable, but if you don't do what he wants you to do he's a giant selfish petty warrior and magician who can and will destroy you for ruining his game. He does all the tradiational dragon stuff, but in a way that differs from just hiding in a cave and stealing cattle.
Folks are often visibly intermediate between two of the classic fantasy "races", or have very striking or obviously supernatural features while retaining the normal human statline. And most cultures just kind of roll with some things, while being bigots about others - ie it doesn't matter how many limbs you have, but green eyes are a sign of racial inferiority that invites ruthless persecution.
I think a lot of it is my training as an Anthropologist. I love and am fascinated with culture, and my idea of a cool fantasy world is one full of fantastic cultures that are clearly shaped and defined by the magic and other-worldly factors of their lives.
Fantasy of olde: I am powerful and potent and will triumph over alien creatures and discover lost and unknown riches and knowledge instead of my mundane existence reproducing my class.
Fantasy now: I will be discovered by alien creatures and love & be loved by them. I will live a mundane existence reproducing my class.
Also fantasy now: I will do a capitalism among the alien creatures and manipulate their economy in a way that gives me unlimited access to everything I want.
There are few things less fantastic to me than "what if le hot feeemale but pointed ears and maybe a silly language quirk" pandering cliches. It inspires nothing in me, just... boredom now. World of Warcraft and its consequences or something.
Likewise, a very similar "sex sells, so keep selling sex everywhere at all times" capitalist drive made the concept of "isekai" its own self perpetuating weeb meme: it doesn't have to be about being the bestest bideo bame boy that wins sex trophies and is the nice slave owner, but that's where we are now for the majority of the industry's output in that subgenre. What was once associated with, say, The Neverending Story is now primarily in a very sad pandering place.
Classic Isekai A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Do the Odyssey and Gulliver's Travels count as Isekai?
I would even consider The Blazing World as a self-insert isekai. It's from the 1600s
Dante's Inferno? Yes, you guessed it, Isekai
That did have a bit of "do a capitalism in the fantasy setting and take over" evergreen vibe to it, didn't it?