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Milawe · 11-29-2008, 03:05 PM

There's a few vampire/World of Darkness MUDs and MUSHes out there including a Buffy the Vampire Slayer one. Those are very fantastical worlds, though some might consider them alternate history world. There's also a City By the Bay MUSH that is based on the Anita Blake, Vampire Slayer series. Those aren't your usual fantasy/medieval type of things.

I think, normally, people like to classify "fantasy" as a Tolkienesque world filled with dragons and magic and low technology. Your question might be more why is there such low technology in most fantasy worlds. The theory often is that if people had access to magic, technology wouldn't advance as far as it has in our world because there simply wouldn't be a need. In other worlds like Pern, there simply wasn't enough base materials (such as certain metals) for technology to advance as far as what we're used to seeing.

Anyway, though, I think it's just a matter of genre classification as well. Anything that seems low on our tech tree is "fantasy" or "historical". Anything that is modern-ish is "alternate history", and anything that is based on technologies that might exist in our future is "science" fiction or fantasy. It's all in the name!

11-29-2008, 03:05 PM	#14
Milawe Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: USA Home MUD: Threshold RPG Home MUD: Stash Home MUD: Archons of Avenshar Posts: 653	Re: Why does fantasy have to be medieval? There's a few vampire/World of Darkness MUDs and MUSHes out there including a Buffy the Vampire Slayer one. Those are very fantastical worlds, though some might consider them alternate history world. There's also a City By the Bay MUSH that is based on the Anita Blake, Vampire Slayer series. Those aren't your usual fantasy/medieval type of things. I think, normally, people like to classify "fantasy" as a Tolkienesque world filled with dragons and magic and low technology. Your question might be more why is there such low technology in most fantasy worlds. The theory often is that if people had access to magic, technology wouldn't advance as far as it has in our world because there simply wouldn't be a need. In other worlds like Pern, there simply wasn't enough base materials (such as certain metals) for technology to advance as far as what we're used to seeing. Anyway, though, I think it's just a matter of genre classification as well. Anything that seems low on our tech tree is "fantasy" or "historical". Anything that is modern-ish is "alternate history", and anything that is based on technologies that might exist in our future is "science" fiction or fantasy. It's all in the name!