Forum > Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion
When did the "New school" of fantasy begin, exactly?
SonTodoGato
BANNED:
Notice how I said the "new school of fantasy"; not just RPGs, but fantasy in general.
How did we go from Frank Frazzetta/Boris Vallejo/Jeff Easley, etc. illustrations, Conan the Cimmerian, Clark Ashton Smith, Sword & Sorcery, 70's psychedelics and 80's metal, hand-drawn art and a "basement" feeling to pauldroncore, freakshit, "anti-racist" soyboy digital art fantasy, in which no character can get harmed and there's lots of cheeky "humor" and anime personalities?
Examples:
It's called progress sweety...
Here's fucking Dark Sun for God's sake:
So my questions would be:
When did this transition take place and what triggered it? (No pun intended, I swear)
I dont think it's political since it's been around way before the 2010's. I think videogames and digital art contributed to a certain extent since they changed the aesthetics. I think anime did the rest; everybody wanted to play either Zero Morningstar, the silver-haired edgelord who has two guns (one possessed by a cheeky devil and another one by an angel who's totally a pervert :333 >__< ), likes blood and cries under the rain while saying "Y-You probably think I'm selfish...", the funny, comic relief freakshit character (the typical bard stereotype). Well, either that or the guy who likes to play out a sexual fantasy.
And then along came "diversity" to top it all off... So they went from the edgy rogue that makes snarky comments about organized religion to playing disabled POC with 4 pages of backstory.
Cave Bear:
The transition towards freakshit started in the 60's, with Elric of Melnibone.
Omega:
Every iteration of the "Moral Guardian" disease has tried to sanitize and pacify RPGs. Sometimes as part of the battlecry. Sometimes as a secondary to the main goals of taking control of gaming.
Storygamers and Pundits Swine were at the forefront of this and still are pushing it.
But the main goal is control and oppression under the guise of freedom and inclusion by co-opting whats been around from the start.
Before the game was even released players on the original D&D sessions were playing and recruiting monsters. That carried over a little to AD&D and then got lost for a bit in 2e before being gradually re-introduced. And on the flip side you could play anything from a human only campaign to everything in between.
5e has gradually been co-opted to push the idea that the DM is not allowed to say "No" or set limits on races, classes, etc. Storygamer, Swine and Forge tactics 101.
Flipped Bird:
The decline of reading skills has a lot to do with it. There are many, many people who only read young adult novels and can't handle stories above a certain level of complexity or with any thematic maturity. I knew people in college who couldn't deal with Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. These are not people who want to be challenged when they read something.
When it comes to art, that is entirely due to digital painting and the ease with which publishers can find illustrators who will do passable work for cheap. Many of them are self-taught, but even those who got a fine arts education are doing poorly because of the insertion of things that are extraneous to the production of, you know, "fine art"*. The anime look is an easy shortcut for artists who struggle with faces and hands.
*Brian Eno has this anecdote about being present at the thesis presentation for a batch of art school students; one girl was marked down and reduced to tears because her painting, which was excellent, did not come with a very good artist's statement.
tenbones:
--- Quote from: Cave Bear on July 30, 2021, 12:19:07 AM ---The transition towards freakshit started in the 60's, with Elric of Melnibone.
--- End quote ---
In fiction - sure, it was written as a rebuke of Tolkien's work (and I'd argue by mischaracterization of Tolkien's intent on Moocock's part - but whatever). But the conceits are ENTIRELY different. You could no more have Elric be accepted by the woke mob before his inevitable actions run afoul of their ideology very quickly.
In Gaming? The Freakshow started in the latter part of the 3e era... And by 4e it was a done deal. There is zero contextualization to D&D's secondary settings, and with their latest announcement, much to my delight, those settings *don't even exist* outside of the current slap-dash freakshow.
Which is fine by me. I have a wall of 1e and 2e Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Darksun, Spelljammer, and Ravenloft (plus more) to claim as mine to with as I please.
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