My Fantasy At The Table
I am a very, very big fan of fantasy. From the Peter Jackson's LoTR and H-rry Potter (FUCK ROWLING) as a child, to Conan and Elric as an adult, I love fantasy. I also love pulp horror and weird fiction. Even as a child I devoured Goosebumps, American and Michigan Chillers, the Weenies books, and some juvenile book duology where people's asses were their own rebellious entities, which sits at the back of my mind. Nowadays, it's Clive Barker, Lovecraft, Robert W. Chambers, and Langan. I as an adult delve into the art and atmosphere of OSR rulebooks and modules and toolkits. I bury myself in horror video games of a scifi, fantasy, and supernatural bent. Some particular games that have stuck out to me are Fear & Hunger 1 and 2, Signalis, and Labyrinth of The Demon King. I like pitch black survival horror.
I am a metalhead, true and through. Black thrash, doom, sludge, black, speed, and trad metal being among my favorites. I love the music itself, the lyrics however brutal or artful, the album covers full of Satanic scenes of such succulent salaciousness that inspire me artistically. Speed or slowness, the sledgehammer heaviness, and the wall of sound keeps me hooked. A metal concert in a bar venue is heaven on earth.
Of course, I am also a furry. Protogens, Avali, Protovali, and Synths being amongst my absolute favorites: the scifi heavy fandom original species. Funnily enough though, I don't like straight scifi that much. Just not an fan, aesthetically or conceptually. There are a few exceptions however, like particularly grungy cyberpunk (like the graphic novel Night Hunters or Cy_Borg, the Mork Borg spinoff ttrpg/adventure game) or scifi horror, like Alien.
However, when you bring scifi and fantasy together... oh, fuck yes( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Warhammer 40K, old pulps, Star Wars, the Mario universe, Adventure Time, Heavy Metal (1980), Wizards (1977), the implied settings of TTRPG's like Dungeon Crawl Classics, Troika, and 3LBB Original Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D), etc. etc. I LOVE sci-fantasy. It is home, even more than fantasy alone, even if I don't like straight faced scifi. It's a warm blanket of infinite possibility, the fusion of arcane magics and machine. Laser pistol in one hand and black magic demon sword in the other.
I do, however dislike the soft, amorphous mythic nature of much fantasy at the table, even if I love reading it. So this leads in to the actual point of this rambling, how does all of this translate and apply at the table when I run (usually OD&D hacked up a good bit)? I want to lay this out in 5 points: Fantastic Naturalism, Moorcockian Psuedo-Pagan Cosmology, Modernity, Grimness, and Cosmopolitanism.
- Fantastic Naturalism
This is quite simple. While my settings are very much fantasy, they operate on a high degree of real world logic, even if not being "realistic". Dragons are animals (and often a playable people group), the world is a globe planet around a star in a relatively realistic cosmos, the planet is old as dirt, evolution is real and mostly responsible for all natural biological life (albeit influenced and affected by magic and fantasy bullshit), dungeons have monsters and shit but are not mystical underworld realms of dream logic (unless they are specifically meant to be), and so on and so on sniff. I find rooting my settings in a degree of natural processes and logic provides me and the players a rough basis for resolving and ruling on things not necessarily mechanical or supernatural. I also just like it, idk what to tell ya.
- Moorcockian Psuedo-Paganism
I make it plain that, besides my 31K setting (a de-grimderped and more heavily fantasy 40K fan au with my personal furfaggotry), much of the religious and cosmological shit in my settings is a blend of real world historical Pagan and folk religious ideas, my actual irl personal faith, moorcockian fantasy conventions, Fear & Hunger, and Robert E. Howard style unknowable, grim, psuedo-lovecraftian gods. One foot in reality, two feet in pulp fantasy tropes, and one foot in Fear and Hunger. Get your fucking dog off of my setting influences before the little shit ruins them and tracks them all over my carpet.
- Modernity
I love 19th-21st century style settings, especially outright alternate fantasy earths with a similar historical trajectory. I love the weird impact of guns, cars, tanks, radio, telephones, tv, trains, planes, and industrialism on OD&D sensibilities. Where monsters lay on the fringes of the civilized world, some even considered endangered species. I keep however, heavy fantasy anachronism. It feels wrong, in an enticing way. We still have swords and adventurers out and about delving dungeons deep, either thriving or a dying profession depending on the setting take. However, the world also has modern comforts and dangers, a whole new frontier of risk compared to a mere dungeon dweller. I also like to bring in straight scifi elements, handled differently in different settings. For example, in Earth 111, there is scifi tech because one of the four earths that melded was in a galactic age. In Glass Cannons, there is scifi bits from stranded aliens(protogens and avali, of course) who have been here so long they are considered mundane people. This all adds up to this fucked up, unique, very rich and spicy flavor that I rarely ever see out in the wild. I didn't invent it, but I'm coining the term "Industrial Fantasy". Go forth and spread my gospel, ye reader of this most holy internet text.
- Grimness(but not grimdark)
I love 40K, Mork Borg, the first 7 seasons of Game of Thrones. I also think, at this stage, the ultra grim, despair filled, hopeless, bitter setting type, "grimderp", is a bit fucking overplayed. What I desire is what I'll call "grimlite", or as my friend put my setting ideals once, "pastel misery porn." I want, on and individual level, there to real ability for warmth, friendship, and kindness, while the world around these moments rages in world wars, banditry, inequality, class conflict, revolutions, magical crimes, disease, etc. In other words, a heightened, dramatized, fantasy version of something called "Real Life" or "Pretty Much How The World Actually Fucking Works". An overall realistic suffering, tipped just a few pounds heavier into darkness than reality. Grim, but not hopeless. Scary, but with comfort to be found, however rare and fleeting.
- Cosmopolitanism
I generally keep racism specifically out of my settings, even alt earths, because I don't want to deal with it at the table and I don't feel qualified to deal with it either. This creates however, an interesting butterfly effect in a setting with humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, kobolds, dragons, lizardfolk, protogens, and avali all being common. It results in a radical cosmopolitanism. This undercuts the grimness above a little, and is arguably deeply unrealistic(you know if any of these guys were real there'd be fuckass racists on all ends), but I think it is highly conducive to roleplay, player comfort, and letting players be little guys without their dudes being "exotic". I favor a more roleplay, even "play acting" heavy take on OSR play culture, and have a few mechanical bits like death saves to give just that little edge. I am caught between what I fondly remember being actually good from my time in 5e-ism, and finding much of OSR ideals deeply attractive. So, I hybridize, and it works. This cosmopolitanism just further facilitates this on a setting level.
In short, that's my vibe, my deal, my vision, my jam, my taste, etc. I like a kinda funky middle ground between a lot of disparate things, and it's been working well at the table for good while now, irl and online games of OD&D, group and solo. If it sounds neat, give it a shot, give your own spin on the vibe. Tell me about it, ontross on discord. Have fun, and remember, 20 bucks is 20 bucks.