A problem with RPGs: RPG developers are not well-read in myth and fantasy/sci-fi literature

[Tyranicon]

I want devs to do new genres instead of beating that dead horse.

The unfortunate reality is that the big devs are too risk adverse to move to something new, and indies will find it very hard to survive if they tackle new genres.

You can push out some mediocre shit in fantasy medieval worlds and it'll still sell alright if you have halfway decent art design. Just look at all the very positive mercenary sims on steam right now.

 

[Jaesun]

I want devs to do new genres instead of beating that dead horse.

The unfortunate reality is that the big devs are too risk adverse to move to something new, and indies will find it very hard to survive if they tackle new genres.

You can push out some mediocre shit in fantasy medieval worlds and it'll still sell alright if you have halfway decent art design. Just look at all the very positive mercenary sims on steam right now.

I'm still holding on that some indie guy/group will just come of of no where and do a better and more refreshing/innovative take of the utterly tired "Fantasy" setting and attracts some appeal.

 

[Reinhardt]

Another problem is that devs are obsessed with Tolkien and refuse to do anything else but badly copying Middle Earth. Eurofantasy is oversaturated. Devs need to explore new settings like historical, alternate history, modern, scifi, etc. If the quality is good, then people will buy it.

Are they at this point, though? Sure, they have elves, dwarves, orcs and hobbits, but Tolkien is more than that. Stuff like the Underdark and creatures from other planes aren't very Tolkien-esque. They've added so much stuff to their theme park versions of Eurofantasy that it doesn't resemble anything the genre originally took inspiration from. I can't actually think of a game released recently that is a bad copy of Middle-Earth.

D&D-esque then. The genre is oversaturated, games are homogeneous, creativity is being strangled, blah blah blah. I’m sick of it.

Exactly! This is every fantasy game. I’m tired of the fantasy genre. I want devs to do new genres instead of beating that dead horse.

nigga u wot. when you last time saw chainmail bikinis in western vidya?

 

[Tweed]

Maybe if ACE Team made a full-fledged CRPG in their Zenozoik setting.

 

[negator2vc]

Exactly! This is every fantasy game. I’m tired of the fantasy genre. I want devs to do new genres instead of beating that dead horse.

The problem isn't the genre but what the devs do with it.
Changing the genre won't make the crpgs better they will just have different dressing.
Beneath that you will still have the same crap stories, same idiotic characters, same stupid motives, etc...

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Exactly! This is every fantasy game. I’m tired of the fantasy genre. I want devs to do new genres instead of beating that dead horse.

The problem isn't the genre but what the devs do with it.
Changing the genre won't make the crpgs better they will just have different dressing.
Beneath that you will still have the same crap stories, same idiotic characters, same stupid motives, etc...

I would still be sick of fantasy even if the average writers weren’t hacks. I’m fucking sick of seeing elves, dwarves and other D&D shit. I’m sick of kings and knights and swords and shit.

 

[Tyranicon]

I dunno man. If you avoid garbage, you probably haven't played a generic European medieval fantasy RPG in years.

The only two recent ones I've played are Caves of Lore (you're mostly in a cave) and Baldur's Gate 3 (which is more like magic California than anything resembling Europe).

Honestly, having RPGs as a hobby is the cheapest fucking hobby ever. If you don't pirate games, you spend maybe like $60 bucks a year because everything is trash.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Sturgeon’s law means most products in any genre are terrible. That’s why I advocate that we need more diversity in genres. The more there are, the more likely you’ll find something good somewhere.

 

[Iucounu]

Exactly! This is every fantasy game. I’m tired of the fantasy genre. I want devs to do new genres instead of beating that dead horse.

The problem isn't the genre but what the devs do with it.
Changing the genre won't make the crpgs better they will just have different dressing.
Beneath that you will still have the same crap stories, same idiotic characters, same stupid motives, etc...

A new genre would at least force them to make an effort creating it (assuming that the usual reuse of clichés is primarily caused by laziness from the developers, not by consumer demand). So hopefully a writer creative enough to come up with a new genre will take his task seriously, and not have his creation corrupted by a woke studio.

 

[Pocgels]

yellow people has their own culture. ninja/shaolin monk/samurai is a trope already. what blakpipo bring to the table of races and classes? naked tribal spearchukka and voooooooodooooooooo?

Yam

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Exactly! This is every fantasy game. I’m tired of the fantasy genre. I want devs to do new genres instead of beating that dead horse.

The problem isn't the genre but what the devs do with it.
Changing the genre won't make the crpgs better they will just have different dressing.
Beneath that you will still have the same crap stories, same idiotic characters, same stupid motives, etc...

A new genre would at least force them to make an effort creating it (assuming that the usual reuse of clichés is primarily caused by laziness from the developers, not by consumer demand). So hopefully a writer creative enough to come up with a new genre will take his task seriously, and not have his creation corrupted by a woke studio.

You mean write in a different genre? I don’t expect anyone to be able to invent a new genre deliberately. These things arise organically.

But I do think unfamiliarity with a genre can keep a writer on their toes when they can’t rely on familiar clichés. But they can also reinvent the clichés by chance since they don’t know what is a cliché there.

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that. They have room to be creative.

 

[Elttharion]

A friend sent me this pic when I was complaining about writting in games today.

 

[just]

of course it's canadians

 

[Tyranicon]

Modern game writers now: Hah, fuck off chuds. The gaming industry is no longer for you.

Modern game writers soon: Why are profits dropping? Why don't people play our games anymore?!?!

Modern game writers soon: AI took our jerbs! We can't compete with barely-usable LLMs!

Modern game writers eventually: You can't make a living wage as an assistant barista-in-training! Capitalism bad!

Modern game writers endgame: Talent and effort are discriminatory against us! Equity in art!

 

[Theodora]

Only losers stay in gaming industry unless they are small independent teams

Is there any good motivation to be in 'AAA' gamedev as a writer? More than any other medium, your work will be warped by grotesque financial concerns -- which is to say, it won't be properly respected in the first place.

There's a bit of a trope of a person you find in almost any space to do with writing, of someone who --- contrary to the cardinal advice given to all budding writers, to read everything and anything that they possibly can -- think they're good enough as is, and that (at best) they "don't have time" to actually read anything, regardless of how canonically noteworthy it is, and God forbid you try to wrangle such people into reading a critical response to a piece media that has any more nuance (or length) than your average Steam review. It's almost like such people are more attached to the "idea" of "being a writer", than they are passionate about literature or language or the idea of interactive fictions.

So yeah, I wouldn't say it's a surprising conclusion for anyone who has interfaced with professional and amateur writers. It's not very hard to understand the appeal of writing for an indie title if you trust in the capacity of your coworkers and have a free hand with things (and you know, are at least financially stable / getting reasonable compensation), but I struggle to understand how anyone with actual respect for themselves and the medium could stay sane in a corporate gig, even ignoring the garbage pay and conditions. Sounds soul destroying, so it wouldn't be remotely surprising if "literary literacy" (lol) was an absent quality throughout the corporate side of the industry.

 

[Üstad]

Another problem is that devs are obsessed with Tolkien and refuse to do anything else but badly copying Middle Earth. Eurofantasy is oversaturated. Devs need to explore new settings like historical, alternate history, modern, scifi, etc. If the quality is good, then people will buy it.

A silk road setting would be nice if it's written by a literate dev, assuming it's won't be uninspired like warhammer fantasy.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

of course it's canadians

 

[Iucounu]

But I do think unfamiliarity with a genre can keep a writer on their toes when they can’t rely on familiar clichés. But they can also reinvent the clichés by chance since they don’t know what is a cliché there.

Maybe reinventing clichés is not a big risk if the writer is unfamiliar with the genre, worst-case scenario is that he produces a fresh less clichéed take. But more likely the audience will not like the novelty.

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that. They have room to be creative.

True. One example is the depiction of elves. In folklore, they seem to be supernatural spirits:

"...magically powerful people living, usually invisibly, alongside everyday human communities. They continued to be associated with causing illnesses and with sexual threats. For example, several early modern ballads in the British Isles and Scandinavia, originating in the medieval period, describe elves attempting to seduce or abduct human characters."​

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"The elves of Norse mythology have survived into folklore mainly as females, living in hills and mounds of stones.[125] The Swedish älvor were stunningly beautiful girls who lived in the forest with an elven king.[126][127]​

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The elves could be seen dancing over meadows, particularly at night and on misty mornings. They left a circle where they had danced, called älvdanser (elf dances) or älvringar (elf circles), and to urinate in one was thought to cause venereal diseases."​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf​

Tolkien's elves in LoTR seem more like physical human beings:

"Tolkien goes on to say that the elves had very little in common with elves or fairies of Europe, and that they really represent men with greater artistic ability, beauty and a longer life span. In his writings, an Elven bloodline was the only real claim to 'nobility' that the Men of Middle-earth could have."​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elves_in_Middle-earth#The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(c._1937–1949)​

From what I've seen in games elves are indeed based more on Tolkien than on folklore, just with pointed ears added so the player can tell them apart from humans at all.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

The issue at hand is not exclusively being poorly read but also lacking in lived experience from which to draw inspiration. Tolkien was well read in the folklore and myth of British and Germanic cultures but he drew inspiration from his time in World War 1. A good example being Samwise Gamgee's devotion towards Frodo, possibly being inspired by the batman who were direct servants of British Army officers. By applying his own lived experiences Tolkien did not just simply regurgitate the words of another writer but managed to create his own ideas that helped him remain popular even nearly a half century since his passing. A writer who only forms ideas through reading the works of other authors will only find success in their own lifetime.

 

[Tyranicon]

The real problem with writing in the modern age is nobody seeks greatness anymore.

Ambition is a naughty word, and creatives have been thoroughly defanged of the rough, crazed, desperate energy that defined their predecessors.

Being a writer has been reduced to a status symbol, or worse, as some kind of burdensome mantle which requires you to regurgitate retreadings of the "current thing." To reduce your scope to the small and the mundane.

Pathetic.

Writing is survival of the fittest. It is something deeply personal but also unabashedly universal. If you're not trying to touch the face of God, I question why you're a writer in the first place.

 

[Theodora]

If you're not trying to touch the face of God, I question why you're a writer in the first place.

Delusions of $$$ is of course a thing, no matter how hilariously off point it might seem to the vast majority of those that write professionally.

So many "creatives" (what an empty word, I wish "artist" hadn't gained an almost exclusive tie to visual art) never get meaningful recognition while they're alive, such that it baffles me that anyone counts on "making it", nevermind becoming wealthy as a result.

 

[Konjad]

The real problem with writing in the modern age is nobody seeks greatness anymore.

Ambition is a naughty word, and creatives have been thoroughly defanged of the rough, crazed, desperate energy that defined their predecessors.

Being a writer has been reduced to a status symbol, or worse, as some kind of burdensome mantle which requires you to regurgitate retreadings of the "current thing." To reduce your scope to the small and the mundane.

Pathetic.

Writing is survival of the fittest. It is something deeply personal but also unabashedly universal. If you're not trying to touch the face of God, I question why you're a writer in the first place.

North Americans went through:
- Wow, these computers are pretty great, let's make some cool games, we have so many ideas!
- hundreds of ideas, lots of creativity, peak RPG times from 80s to early 2000s
- complete crashdown of creativity and complete focus on business
- corporate profit margins, white guilt writing, exodus of all skills, excluding very few exceptions even indie scene is dead and forgotten

In comparison, Western Europeans:
- hundreds of ideas, lots of creativity, peak RPG times from 90s to early 2000s
- complete crashdown of creativity and complete focus on business
- AAA corporate profit margins, safe for corporate work writing, exodus of all skills
- Indie rebirth and plenty of decent RPGs if you look for them

Easten Europe:
- creativity starting some time in late 90s when people could finally afford PCs, but with limited number of games (and few translated)
- a few AAA companies emerge on some success due to originality of Eastern European games
- the AAA companies want profits of westerners, complete crashdown of creativity and complete focus on business and generic washed writing
- very limited number of indies who continue business as usual, often inspired by western 90s

China:
- plenty of creativity starting some time in late 90s and continuing to early 2000s
- game companies get noticed by *certain* corporations and get bought, complete crashdown of creativity and complete focus on business
- very few indies despite huge population, lack of any creativity due to increasing censorship, so you can make only generic fantasy games
- AAA companies release mostly mobile games focused on gambling, eroticism and maximum profits

I heard Japan also had some decent RPGs in early times but now it's all generic (final) fantasy stuff, is there any indie scene? tbh idk about Japan or S.Korea much, especially since I despise jRPG combat.

The world went terribly wrong in late 2000s. Nowadays we see a 'rebirth' of the genre in some ways, mostly due to increasing number of indie games though. Can't say I look forward to any AAA RPG in the future, except by Larian, but their writing also is corporate and washed.

 

[Storyfag]

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that.

You sure about that?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that.

You sure about that?

I mean, is there a single unified sci fi template?

 

[Storyfag]

A key reason why fantasy is so homogeneous and stagnant yet consistently popular is because Tolkien and Gygax created bibles for the genre that all the hacks imitate. Other genres don’t really have that.

You sure about that?

I mean, is there a single unified sci fi template?

As much as the single unified fantasy Generica posted on the previous page? Trek. Mass Effect. Star Wars. WH40K. They all follow it to this or that degree. You could argue they are fantasy in a sci fi guise (space opera, then), but to that I will tell you: find me something produced currently that isn't.