There’s something that has hung in the back of mind when it comes to RPG’s. Why is there such a love affair with fantasy.
Yes, Dungeons & Dragons is the venerable RPG and it’s fantasy. But over the decades of the hobby the fantasy genre has remained the most popular. Other games have come and gone but still back to fantasy. Part of it might just a taste preference among gamers. Maybe more gamers like fantasy than say science fiction or even other genres. But part of me thinks that just maybe the those types of settings lend themselves better to an RPG.
Let me explain. A low tech magical world lends itself to the types of stories that have become the mainstay of the hobby. Low-Tech equals lower laws. Player character’s can walk around armed and armored like a military unit without too much interference. Fantastical: Magic, magical beasts and myth add a sense of mystery and wonder. Myths and legends strike common cord with everybody.
A creative group can twist these tropes into just about any genre but it just seems that we keep going back to fantasy. I really don’t see anything wrong with it. But it just got me wondering.
So what do you think? Why fantasy?
Jan 302012
migo on 
One of the reasons is that fantasy is more simply iconic than any of the other genres. While Star Wars and Star Trek may ostensibly be part of the same genre (though some may argue, which is part of the point), you would be hard pressed to present one system that handles both well. You would be even harder pressed to have a party of PCs move from Imperial space into Federation space smoothly.
And, yet, we can easily have Conan, King Arthur, Gandalf, and the Grey Mouser working side by side with minimal cognitive dissonance. Not only do we have the societal freedom you mentioned, but that’s assisted by the fact that actual medieval Europe had wildly divergent cultures living remarkably closely together (by today’s standards). If each of the four above are the stereotypical “traveler from a distant land,” it is trivial to hand-wave away the differences in culture (or even tech level).
Fantasy is a much looser genre overall, that can support many more types of stories without bending out of shape.
Lugh recently posted..System Wank: A Wealth of Options
I believe part of it is the escape from the mundane and normal world we live in. Sci-Fi is too close to “reality” and thus makes it harder to escape. As Lugh mentioned, fantasy is mysterious and unknown. Like a good joke, players want to be surprised. And fantasy has the biggest unknown and blueprint for surprise, magic. Magic allows the world to become something our world is not. It is the “rationale” for it all.
If you look at some of the most popular games in the past, most of them had some form of magic (Shadowrun, Cthulhu, WoD). Sure there were some (Traveller) that were the exception which is to be expected, but most had magic. And with this desire for magic and all the trappings therein, it comes as no surprise to me that fantasy (which is a magic based game in its “purest” form) remains the most popular. Fantasy is the easiest way to slip the bonds of “reality”.
callin recently posted..5E Friday
Maybe it comes down to an RPG’s essence: we’re playing make-believe, just like we did as children. And as children, we all grew up with fairytales – most (if not all) were steeped in fantasy (dragons, fair maidens, knights in shiny armour, etc).