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jackal59mo2 · 11-28-2008, 10:48 PM

Folks, maybe I'm just crazy, but seeing as this is a board associated with MUDs I honestly don't think that OP was complaining that there are few non-medieval fantasy books or movies as much as that there are few non-medieval fantasy games. I doubt a visit to the library or the bookstore would address that.

Further, while the Star Wars screenplays may have some supernatural elements, I'm pretty sure that their setting's technology makes it safest to classify them as science fiction. After all, even though a book like Samuel Delaney's Nova has a number of supernatural and even mythic elements - it's in part a retelling of the Grail quest, for heaven's sake - it is still science fiction. Likely "speculative fiction" is the class term, with "science ficiton" and "fantasy" as subsets.

What does non-medieval fantasy game look like? Maybe like the Arabian Knights stories, since, though those are technically "medieval," they are not set in the ersatz high medieval, chivalric Europe that came into games via sword 'n' sorcery fiction. Maybe they could look like the fantasies of Lord Dunsany or Mervyn Peake. A fantasy game based in the Roman Empire (I'd suggest someplace in the provinces such as Cologne) might be a third way. The problem remains, though, that players will likely have wildly different ideas about what those settings are like. I don't know a good solution to that.

11-28-2008, 10:48 PM	#9
jackal59mo2 Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 45	Re: Why does fantasy have to be medieval? Folks, maybe I'm just crazy, but seeing as this is a board associated with MUDs I honestly don't think that OP was complaining that there are few non-medieval fantasy books or movies as much as that there are few non-medieval fantasy games. I doubt a visit to the library or the bookstore would address that. Further, while the Star Wars screenplays may have some supernatural elements, I'm pretty sure that their setting's technology makes it safest to classify them as science fiction. After all, even though a book like Samuel Delaney's Nova has a number of supernatural and even mythic elements - it's in part a retelling of the Grail quest, for heaven's sake - it is still science fiction. Likely "speculative fiction" is the class term, with "science ficiton" and "fantasy" as subsets. What does non-medieval fantasy game look like? Maybe like the Arabian Knights stories, since, though those are technically "medieval," they are not set in the ersatz high medieval, chivalric Europe that came into games via sword 'n' sorcery fiction. Maybe they could look like the fantasies of Lord Dunsany or Mervyn Peake. A fantasy game based in the Roman Empire (I'd suggest someplace in the provinces such as Cologne) might be a third way. The problem remains, though, that players will likely have wildly different ideas about what those settings are like. I don't know a good solution to that.