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[G-Flex]

That's because fandoms leap at unimaginative cliche. I hate to say it, but it's true; the DF community has a whole lot of overblown injokes that haven't been funny or interesting for years, and generic comments about elves being bad/useless/slaughtered/subhuman pretty much top the list.

[Nikov]

Bah, pansy elf lover.

[G-Flex]

Not exactly proving me wrong there.

Other examples would include POUR MAGMA ON IT as a solution to virtually any problem.

[Cotes]

To be fair, Toady doesn't really assume the need for those creatures; they're just common stock. He fully supports the idea that eventually it can get more diverse, or even procedurally generated.

Yeah, I'd probably prefer if it didn't have the Typical Fantasy Races as such, but I guess my point is that it started off more cliche/less serious than it is now, and is likely to continue moving in that direction. Keep in mind that DF had rather humble beginnings compared to where it is and where it's going.

Oh come on, it's called Dwarf Fortress. And just because you use lesser known fantasy stocks or rearrange them doesn't mean you are being original. And it's still based on a medieval world that has multiple fantasy races - a setup which is nearly impossible to make even seem anything but post-lotrian.

But that's completely fine.

I'm not complaining about DF. I'm saying that it's not a hallmark in the terms of being fantasy, it's a hallmark in gaming. I don't really care that it has elves and dwarves - the setting works just as well as any other one would have. But just because I think DF is really awesome and does things most games don't even try to achieve, doesn't mean I'm going to pretend it did something amazing to its setting/narrative genre as well.

In fact, the stock setting might be even great for DF for the same reason it is perfect for DnD - Sure it's not going to win you any originality awards but it's a setting most people are at least slightly familiar with. It's not the main event, it's merely a tool to get the player involved.

Also: Seems like my point about the elf-dwarf-hate was completely missed.

[Armok]

This is indeed one of the many great promises of DF.

@Cotes: the concept you're looking for might be http://lesswrong.com/lw/lj/the_halo_effect/

[G-Flex]

Oh come on, it's called Dwarf Fortress. And just because you use lesser known fantasy stocks or rearrange them doesn't mean you are being original.

You're right, but that's not all DF does. Every time content gets changed or added in DF, I notice a trend of diverging away from typical fantasy stock, even if it is heavily rooted in it. Originality usually exists not in the form of creating something out of whole cloth, but rather adapting, expanding upon, and altering what already exists.

I'm not complaining about DF. I'm saying that it's not a hallmark in the terms of being fantasy, it's a hallmark in gaming.

I think it can be both, in that the detailed simulation aspects of the game (and other, future aspects) can explore this type of setting in a way that most works don't.


Again, I don't think DF is "shaking a box of cliches" around. It's like The Elder Scrolls in the sense that its foundation is built with extremely established bricks, but that diverges from cliche from that point forward in order to become something interesting in its own right.

[Nikov]

Not exactly proving me wrong there.

Other examples would include POUR MAGMA ON IT as a solution to virtually any problem.

I am, shocking though it might seem, actually in full agreement.

[G-Flex]

Then you must be an elven sympathizer!

[Nikov]

Well if you're an elf and I'm an elven sympathizer...

Ow! My brain! I think I just threw a thought breaker.

[agatharchides]

Tolkien did set the base for a lot of high fantasy, but that doesn't mean everything that borrows anything from that is worthless. Tolkien himself borrowed tons of ideas from old epics and folklore. That's true of most genres, it is why we have the word. If it ain't broke don't fix it. 

[Cotes]

Oh come on, it's called Dwarf Fortress. And just because you use lesser known fantasy stocks or rearrange them doesn't mean you are being original.

You're right, but that's not all DF does. Every time content gets changed or added in DF, I notice a trend of diverging away from typical fantasy stock, even if it is heavily rooted in it. Originality usually exists not in the form of creating something out of whole cloth, but rather adapting, expanding upon, and altering what already exists.

I'm not complaining about DF. I'm saying that it's not a hallmark in the terms of being fantasy, it's a hallmark in gaming.

I think it can be both, in that the detailed simulation aspects of the game (and other, future aspects) can explore this type of setting in a way that most works don't.


Again, I don't think DF is "shaking a box of cliches" around. It's like The Elder Scrolls in the sense that its foundation is built with extremely established bricks, but that diverges from cliche from that point forward in order to become something interesting in its own right.

No. You do not end up with an original work by first basing everything on something completely loaned and then starting to change details to not seem like a copycat. That's very much "making elves and dwarves friends just to be different".
DF's setting is only original within the context of the very formulaic and clichéd sub-genre it belongs to. It definitely isn't some huge collective step for the entire genre.

'Fantasy' means a lot more than you think it does.

Tolkien did set the base for a lot of high fantasy, but that doesn't mean everything that borrows anything from that is worthless. Tolkien himself borrowed tons of ideas from old epics and folklore. That's true of most genres, it is why we have the word. If it ain't broke don't fix it. 

Fantasy as a literature genre IS broken. When a genre called goddamn 'fantasy' is one of the most formulaic ones available, it  must be.

And Tolkien picked very specific myths for LotR and actually studied them - unlike his apers who at best follow his exact footsteps. The fact that Tolkien wasn't being entirely original himself does not make the talentless hacks any less so.
Besides, basing your fantasy story on existing mythologies, especially Norse or Greek (never mind "The ones Tolkien did"), is a huge cliché now days regardless of the man.

[G-Flex]

No. You do not end up with an original work by first basing everything on something completely loaned and then starting to change details to not seem like a copycat. That's very much "making elves and dwarves friends just to be different".

Fun fact: This is how most innovation is actually done. If you were to study any sort of mythology or folklore, or even comparative religion, you would know that. Old ideas change over time, and new ones very, very, very just show up out of nowhere. Most things are adaptations, subversions, synthesis, etc. of something else.


I agree that DF's setting isn't the most original fantasy setting in the world; it sure as hell isn't. That being said, it didn't start with that goal in mind, is still in development, and is consistently diverging from that; Toady and ThreeToe have a pretty decent grasp of fantasy and folklore, as far as I've been able to tell, and you can't assume that the current content in DF is totally in line with their eventual vision for it, especially considering the game's origins as something with much less depth and breadth than it now has.

Fantasy as a literature genre IS broken. When a genre called goddamn 'fantasy' is one of the most formulaic ones available, it  must be.

No arguments from me here; I've been saying this for quite a while.

[Capntastic]

Here's one of the best articles about while Tolkein is garbage, from a moral point of view, by none other than Michael Moorcock.

[Marshall Burns]

Fantasy as a literature genre IS broken. When a genre called goddamn 'fantasy' is one of the most formulaic ones available, it  must be.

My Gawd, yes. This is the main reason I love Stephen King's The Dark Tower, even though the quality drops sharply after the first book: it's something different, at last. I'm in the process of trying to fix this on the RPG front with a couple of my games-in-design as well, so it's very encouraging to hear somebody else voice my thoughts like that. Thanks, Cotes!

[G-Flex]

One problem with both modern sci-fi and fantasy is that people think that settings, fantasy races, sci-fi technologies, blah blah blah, all that content, exist for their own sake. They don't. They're devised to explore literary avenues, the human condition, speculate about the future or how people would act in alternate worlds, as a vehicle for allegory, and a number of other things, but not for their own sake. Both genres make this mistake in modern times because your typical "geeks" get caught up so much in settings and franchises that they don't realize that those things exist to serve an artistic purpose.

For example, the Star Wars universe (as originally depicted) served as a vehicle for a sort of epic hero story, but set in a different sort of alien world than normal (IIIN SPAAAACE), with a sort of mysticism to it (the jedi basically being the wise monk type) serving up allegory and character development. It all existed for some artistic purpose, and were means to an end, because that's sort of how fiction and art work. Contrast this to the Star Wars prequels, or how a lot of fans seem to view the setting, where the Jedi are basically just a bunch of badass killing machines and this (and other aspects of the setting) mostly exist for the own sake in a set of action movies with meandering plot that didn't really seem to signify much of anything.

I'm not familiar enough with most popular fantasy works to say much about them, but the same sort of thing applies. There's this sort of cargo cult writing trend going on, where people ape the superficial aspects of works without realizing why those aspects were even included in the first place. Hell, in the case of Star Wars, the series did it to itself.