JRR had at least the excuse that he was working from mythological sources. Does anybody find it even more profoundly weird that Star Trek converted aliens into different “races” of human beings such that there could be offspring from humans and Volcans, or humans and Klingons, or Crystalline Entities and Romulans, etc.?
Hardly that. If anything the field has become MORE rigid. As with music the peak of innovation and experimentation was in the late 60s and early 70s. Yes, you get more people from under-represented groups these days, which is nice. But the field is over-genrified, micro-genrified, and the tropes have become much more rigid albeit in different directions than before. From “Corporate Dystopian” to “Military Alien Invasion” to “Harem LitRPG” and recent additions like “Afrofuturist” and “Paranormal Romance” the moment you look at the cover or read the Blurb you know exactly what you’re going to get; the industry is much less forgiving of things that color outside the lines. Stories have to fit much more cleanly into the distinct marketing spaces, and there’s a lot less room for experimentation.
Does that describe every book and game? No. But it is absolutely happening and has been getting worse for years. The authors I know complain about it. The trade rags wring their hands and wonder what to do about it. In general someone we trust has to recommend it because we’ve gotten sick of it. Hell, my wife doesn’t read SF&F anymore unless it’s passed through that filter plus me because, as she says, “I can’t be bothered to read the same shit that was stamped out on an assembly line.”
Of course, the industry is flailing around and doesn’t know what to do with itself on many levels these days, so that isn’t surprising.
I’d say check out writers from abroad. I haven’t gotten around to it myself but i have heard that there were some excellent authors from non-english speaking countries that have gotten their works translated within the last 10 years or so and that their voices and ideas were pretty interesting and unique. I did buy Three Body Problem which is the first one in a series of books but i haven’t read it just yet.
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The writers did try to explain that one.
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John Scalzi, still fighting off the sad puppies and the right wing trollies, says
There are at least two generations of adults now, and two generations of genre writers, who didn’t grow up on it and fundamentally don’t care about it. Long gone are the days where a kid’s first introduction to the genre was a Heinlein or Asimov novel, smuggled out of the adult fiction section of the library or bookstore like samizdat. The Kids These Days got their start reading genre through the YA section and grew up on Rowling and Collins and Westerfeld and Black and Pierce and Snicket, and got their science fiction through film and TV and video games and animation and comics as much as if not more than from books.
There’s a view that SF allows writers to speculate about the future in ways that other genres do not, and this in turn has produced some truly inspiring works of literature, But not all sci-fi adheres to this spirit.
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I have done that. There is some interesting stuff in languages I can read and in translation.
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OH… yes. The boomers were the last truly revolutionary generation… that old argument.
That’s magnanimous of you! Glad those of us who aren’t pale and male are so tepidly accepted by you gate keepers! Thanks for letting us play with YOUR genres man…
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“Afrofuturism” isn’t a trope, it’s a series of literary explorations based on the idea that futuristic technically advanced societies JUST MIGHT not be based on existing white Western culture. Telling stories from the point of view of traditionally under-represented groups like oppressed minorities and non-heteronormative people has expanded the borders of storytelling within the Sci Fi/Fantasy genres, not restricted them.
The reason “Whitefuturism” isn’t a term is because for most of the history of Sci-fi it was just the default setting, notable only in its absence.
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I am a big fan of using fiction to explore and deconstruct social issues. Personally, I like the idea of creating tropes and stereotypes as backstory, which can then be questioned and subverted in gameplay.
Having PCs encounter a race that is generally thought of as evil and savage, only to discover that they aren’t, not only makes for good storytelling, but internalizes the idea of questioning your assumptions. Turning these experiences into an Are we the baddies moment in a fantasy might translate into having one of those moments in real life.
I really like the idea of this book, though. Think I’ll pick it up this week.
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The campaign I’m running right now is for 10-12 year olds- My nephews, a friend of theirs, and my buddy’s kid.
I’ve played a lot of hack 'n slash dungeon crawls in my life, and I’m trying to come up with stuff for the boys, but I keep running into this moral dilemma of not wanting to be like “okay, let’s go kill everybody…”
Last adventure, I ran Graveyard Shift, which was great. They got in, killed the necromancer, let the victim go, and only when looting her books and papers figured out that captives they released were bloodthirsty vampires, and the wizard was trying to find a cure. I noticed that in the next adventure, they’ve been a little more careful, so there’s that…
I’m absolutely using that. I have a bunch of little things that I know my players are missing, but it amuses me to put them in there. My elves use base 12 math.
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I got pulled into a Pendragon campaign a while back. This is the first time I’ve played in many a year. It’s interesting trying to play a character controlled by his passions.
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No, but the thick beards and mustaches work as air filters. A non-dwarf trying to get down in the mines and dig like them is gonna end up with black lung.
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Not exactly the same topic (this is gender stuff) but I read this last year and just learned you can link directly to pages in PDFs with URLs https://www.annarchive.com/files/Drmg039.pdf#page=18
Also Ann Archive is super cool
But I have to defend the old-timer establishment here for a split-second:
They often advocated for people making up their own rules to make their own best possible game. The more I read about the 70s era wargamers the more I realize they were all about that sort of thing. The whole modern dorky male mouth-breather rules lawyer thing is not really compatible with the way they viewed gaming originally as far as I can tell (I wasn’t there)
In other words, it seems like they figured you might not like how one person runs their game, but nothing was to stop you from running your own, with whatever tweaks you wanted.
The author of https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/237544/The-Gardens-Of-Ynn had a post a while ago describing why they thought OSR and older style rpg gaming was cool and good, and if I recall, the ethos behind “make it your own” was the basis of their argument. Unfortunately I can’t quite recall the original link to their post.
I totally agree, and there’s no shortage of already made homebrew material out there and ideas on modifications to make to make things your own. BUT the problem is that the base game does have problematic language and concepts that people will repeatedly encounter when they access the official material, it is basically putting a stamp of approval and normalizing themes that are no longer needed in their current form and asking players to modify it is a lousy and lazy way to go about it.
Mind you I’m not saying that all of the official materials are some kind of racist, sexist mess. Most of the changes should be relatively minor and WotC have acknowledged some materials they need to change, but i think it’s absolutely necessary to have this conversation and make some adjustments where needed. And as you say, afterwards players still have the freedom to further change things should they desire to do so.
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