Quote from: Steerpike;756909In essence, sense of wonder boils down to the idea that "alienation/estrangement is not always bad."

This sense of wonder is integrally linked to the unexpected and the new.  

I think the 'alien/estrangement' stuff is a great spice, but it needs something to play off of... a background that is NOT alien or strange. As much as I like Jorune it IS a harder setting to pull off than 20s/modern era Call of Cthulhu... despite CoC being able to serve up far weirder things than Jorune.

Quote from: Steerpike;757019It's definitely true that people have always been writing different sorts of fantasy, but I feel there was a period when people like Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks were a big thing, like in the mid-to-late eighties and most of the nineties, when Tolkienian-redux fantasy reached a kind of critical saturation point and you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting an orc.

I'm not too aware of what's going on in mainstream fantasy literature these days. I do follow the 'New Weird' authors and blogs and such... but little of that makes it into B&N and when I AM in a bookstore looking at the fantasy stuff it all looks like Gothic Romance novels to me... soap opera vs. weird tales of adventure.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;757146But ask yourself this, which do you think had more players, Glorantha, Jorune, or Tékumel? Which of these three settings would you consider the most accessible to players?

Kind of beside the point but this does start me wondering how Jorune might have fared if it had been a supported D&D setting... ala Dark Sun... rather than being an obscure game I seldom saw represented on store shelves (except in San Francisco).
Being present and available and having a well known publisher goes a long way to increasing some players' willingness to engage with a setting.

I saw a good bit of RQ/Glorantha stuuf on shelves but I've NEVER seen a Tekumel product in a B&M store.

Quote from: SimlasaI think the 'alien/estrangement' stuff is a great spice, but it needs something to play off of... a background that is NOT alien or strange.

A lot of people agree, including creators (I think James Raggi is of this opinion) and, for the most part, good old H.P. Lovecraft, hence the incredibly detailed Miskatonic region.

Quote from: Black VulmeaBut ask yourself this, which do you think had more players, Glorantha, Jorune, or Tékumel? Which of these three settings would you consider the most accessible to players? And yes, I'm deliberately taking D&D's published settings out of the mix entirely here, because that's simply not a fair comparison.

Honestly, I don't have sufficient data or enough knowledge of the fan communities around those settings to answer truthfully.

I will say, though, that I don't think popularity is the only criteria by which to evaluate a setting.  Weird settings and adventures, by their very nature, aren't going to interest as wide an audience, but they might appeal to a particular subset of the audience much more than a generic setting would.  So you might be able to find more Glorantha players overall, but those players who do like something like Tékumel might like it a lot (not that there aren't rabid Glorantha fans, too).  I'm just saying that it takes all sorts, and I'd rather see diversity than homogeneity.

Similarly, I'm not too enamored by the idea that accessibility is what really counts.  I don't necessarily want more accessible settings and adventures; I feel there are a lot of those out there already.  Sometimes things that are less accessible can be richer and more rewarding and enjoyable (or at least enjoyable in different ways) than those with a broader appeal (though not in all cases, or uniformly).

Quote from: Black VulmeaAre we still talking about playing games here? Because the main thrust of my argument is something that may make an interesting novella or movie isn't necessarily the same thing that will make for an interesting roleplaying game.

We are still talking about games, but specifically fantasy and science fiction games.  I feel like a significant amount of the appeal of fantasy/sf roleplaying games is derived from their genre; I don't think that's especially controversial.  Like, I wouldn't be talking about the "sense of wonder" if we were discussing WWII roleplaying games, for example, or even strict historical roleplaying games more generally.  Those genres have their own pleasures and affects and aesthetics.  I'm not saying the aesthetics of a fantasy/sf rpg are identical to those of a fantasy/sf novel or film, but I also don't think they're completely divorced.  D&D has been consciously inspired by literature since the beginning, so I think an analysis of D&D and its ilk from a literary perspective is relevant and useful.

I'm certainly not saying that the "sense of wonder" a game may inspire in players is the only criteria to use when evaluating a product or a game, though.  There are lots of other considerations that need to be factored in.

Quote from: Black VulmeaI don't know that I agree with that.

Other aspects of the sense of wonder could include remoteness, exoticity, grotesquerie, strangeness, sublimity (awe, immensity, infinitude), surreality, inexplicability, etc.

It's true that some fantasy in particular seems to veer away from the sense of wonder and dwell more in the familiar, nostalgic, and comforting.  Personally I don't especially care for that kind of fantasy, but I'll admit that for some players those values may be important, and potentially more generic settings might suit them better.  It takes all sorts - but that's precisely the point, there needs to be diversity rather than just more of the same.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;757162Is a language barrier challenge inherently boring?

No. Designing a challenge which is to be solved by wacky pantomime hi-jinks is.

Quote from: estar;757169The trick of Westeros isn't in kewl stuff but in creating interesting characters doing interesting things.

"Interesting characters doing interesting things" is the holy-fucking-grail. It's amazing to me how many referees seem to miss this very simple thing.

Quote from: Steerpike;757498Weird settings and adventures, by their very nature, aren't going to interest as wide an audience, but they might appeal to a particular subset of the audience much more than a generic setting would.

Yeah, I'm sure if you look hard enough, long enough, you'll find a group of gamers absolutely passionate about The Shab-al-Hiri Roach.

At which point, one has to ask, who fucking cares? I imagine - and I say 'I imagine' because I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to find out - I could find a group of people in the intrewebs who enjoy fucking one another while covered in each other's shit, but that tells me nothing about how most people enjoy sex.

The premise of this thread is that gamers are "hidebound," "retreading cliches" rather than being 'creative' or 'original' or whatever it is that ShipLock seems to think is missing from 'the hobby.' The premise is flawed, as it assumes that 'originality' would inherently make the hobby better. For the reasons cited in this thread, that ain't necessarily so.

If you want to keep posting, 'But i'm right, too!' posts, please, be my guest, but don't be surprised when I don't respond to them.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;758073No. Designing a challenge which is to be solved by wacky pantomime hi-jinks is.

But that's only one way of working through it, and only certain groups will attempt it and be into it, while others will try other stuff, as I mentioned before. Or not deal with the encounter at all, and that's fine too. Again, I'm aware of what exploration and sandbox style mean.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;758073At which point, one has to ask, who fucking cares? I imagine - and I say 'I imagine' because I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to find out - I could find a group of people in the intrewebs who enjoy fucking one another while covered in each other's shit, but that tells me nothing about how most people enjoy sex.

But that is an extreme example. A simple giant tree isn't out of place in D&D and most players would grasp it instantly, yet the premise is rarely used. I'm not wondering why we don't see more Steve-Buscemi's-Nostril dungeons, I'm wondering why we don't see more totally-in-the-scope-of-fantasy-with-only-a-little-more-effort dungeons.

Quote from: Black VulmeaAt which point, one has to ask, who fucking cares? I imagine - and I say 'I imagine' because I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to find out - I could find a group of people in the intrewebs who enjoy fucking one another while covered in each other's shit, but that tells me nothing about how most people enjoy sex.

But... I care.  Lots of gamers care.  Any gamer dissatisfied with the current overabundance of cliched dungeons and the relative scarcity of weird, novel dungeons cares.  People like me, Shipyard Locked, and some of the other voices in this thread...

There's a happy medium between super-weird niche stuff that only 6 people will like and accessible hyper-generic stuff that takes no risks at all but that everyone will be like "meh, that's OK I guess."

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a great example of the kind of product I'm talking about.  It sits somewhere between very generic (the setting itself is pretty much Early Modern Europe) and batshit crazy original (bizarre singing plants, mutant death saints, perverted Lovecraftian sex-demons).  It deploys some older, familiar tropes, subverts others, and introduces some that are utterly weird and unnerving.

Quote from: Black VulmeaIf you want to keep posting, 'But i'm right, too!' posts, please, be my guest, but don't be surprised when I don't respond to them.

We don't need to do that again.  I think you've admitted that weird dungeons can be done well, it's just tough to do so.

Ultimately, I think we can agree to disagree as to whether creators should be focused on just keeping old tropes from going stale or perfecting the execution of more original concepts.

For something to be considered weird, there must be a standard that is considered normal or generic to be deviated from. A steady diet of weird ends up making weird the standard.

There is a definite place in gaming for the generic and normal.

Quote from: jeff37923For something to be considered weird, there must be a standard that is considered normal or generic to be deviated from. A steady diet of weird ends up making weird the standard.

There is a definite place in gaming for the generic and normal.

Absolutely agree.

In fact, many would suggest that the Weird is most powerful and poignant when it erupts from the normal - when what seems familiar and comfortable and mundane gets disturbed, violated by the surreal and grotesque.  Arguably this is a different aesthetic experience than the "sense of wonder" - if sense of wonder is the affect primarily of science fiction, generated by exposure to the new/exotic and unexpected, the cosmic and the vast, then the weird affect is much more associated with horror, with an overriding sense of wrongness.  Fantasy, really, probably lies somewhere between the two most of the time.

Even a Weird dungeon, then, might benefit from having some mundane elements, not only to hook players but to actually heighten the Weird by contrast with the banal.  What seems to be a normal cave is eventually exposed as the fossilized entrails of a dead titan that a lich is attempting to revive.  What looks like an everyday wizard's tower on the outside becomes an extradimensional nightmare-labyrinth of infinite proportions on the inside.  Beneath a sleepy medieval village slumbers an unfathomable alien god whose psychic emanations are slowly driving the locals to acts of psychotic violence.  Etc.

People leave normal to go find weird, that is your adventurer.

Quote from: dragoner;758188People leave normal to go find weird, that is your adventurer.

I'm reminded here of a post I rather liked on Grognardia* about the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun:

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/11/retrospective-forgotten-temple-of.html

key quote...

QuoteThen there are the gnomes. No, I don't find gnomes disturbing, but I do find the use of the gnomes as the framing device for the module to contribute to WG4's creepiness. See, Gygaxian gnomes have more in common with garden gnomes than with the post-Dragonlance mess we call "gnomes" nowadays. They're these unassuming woodland guys who hang out with badgers and moles and are renowned for their trickster natures. Take that image and juxtapose it against an ancient temple dedicated to an avatar of Ultimate Evil and you have to admit that it's jarring.

* Yeah yeah, James is a horrible fraud, I still think he was on point sometimes.

I'll have to read that module again, because we played it, and I don't remember Gnomes; but that was a long time ago.

Mostly I remember the freezing in the dark part on the lower levels.

In my opinion, the challenge with weird settings isn't in designing them, but in truly allowing the PCs to engage or not.  I see that in the examples given people are saying "go there or not", but in my experience, once a DM has taken the time to create something they consider truly unique it is very hard for them to not find a way to force it into play even if under the mere illusion of player choice.

Does that mean it is bad to design weird/unique areas?  No.  Just that the hardest part of it is to create it, assign it interesting things that could become useful in the campaign, and then be content with the possibility it is never chosen for exploration by the players.

Using the tree as an example, in addition to the ideas that Steerpike presented upthread, I would first decide what aspects of this unique creation would intersect with typical adventurer desires.  Perhaps this weird oak tree doubles all druid spell stats when its leaves are collected as components in a full moon; perhaps the intelligent bugs possess a unique magical weapon of some kind (let's say - an intelligent dancing blade that was created in, and has knowledge of, a famous but lost city of ruins) due to randomly and violently encountering its previous possessor; perhaps the first acorn the tree produces every year heals all diseases, regenerates all lost limbs, and removes all curses but also turns the healed person's skin to bark until the next acorn drops.  Then, as PCs use sages or divination to find answers to the various problems they are trying to solve, the tree might come into play.

Also I would put in an arc of events that the PCs hear about at some point, that could either be a hook or simply happenings that underscore the world is a living place apart from the PCs, depending on what they did with them.  Maybe over the course of a year the bugs would appear and no one knows where they come from, as they are entirely alien to the area, and this progresses over time to concern from the local druids and rural folk as they are rapidly overtaking the forest.  Or a feared wizard is seen in the woods splitting open large oak trees with lightning bolts, and no one knows why.  If the PCs choose not to take the hook then he obtains the sword and the knowledge it has, and the lost city is found.  But the wizard now has greater power, and indirectly threatens a greater area.

By setting up these two aspects - the characteristics and the events - the players through the course of normal play may choose to interact with the tree for their own purposes (and may never choose to).  And in that circumstance, I feel that players more often appreciate with a sense of wonder the unusual that they encounter.  Too often when players that enjoy driving the action in a campaign are routed through something just because the DM is proud of his creation, the unique feature is just another obstacle that has to be dealt with in order to get the McGuffin that the DM has decreed represents success in the scenario.  (More passive players who simply want the DM to give them a good story to participate in may not feel this way, of course)

But the hard part, I feel, is for the DM to bring out this creative thing and possibly be content that it never is directly used in the campaign, but done simply for the joy of building a fantastical world.

I find weird settings over-rated. What's original about a game isnt the setting elements or location, but the choices & personalities of the people playing. I could use the same dungeon layout for 30 years and the game would be entirely unique to each group that went through.

On the flip side, when playing with the same group of people, there are limitless interesting things to do in an rpg besides exploring dungeons, so anyone who is stuck on that as the be all end all of the rpg experience is simply suffering from a failure of imagination

Well said TristramEvans... weird and novel dungeons/settings might not be necessary for a fun game, but there's also no reason to stick strictly to traditional dungeons, as if they were the only viable location for adventuring.

Quote from: estar;757169I consider Martin Game of Thrones as the standard of how to take bog standard fantasy tropes and make them new again. He does this by treating Westeros as a real place that happens to have magic and fantastic elements.

The trick of Westeros isn't in kewl stuff but in creating interesting characters doing interesting things.

Very very true. Of course, he also does the subverting of tropes, but more with characters.  I mean, you have aragorn, conan and elric all die in the first book.