{"id":101,"date":"2008-03-23T17:36:07","date_gmt":"2008-03-23T15:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/isabout.wordpress.com\/?p=101"},"modified":"2020-01-02T20:25:33","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T20:25:33","slug":"cultural-subtext-of-modern-fantasy-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonepublishing.net\/isabout\/2008\/03\/23\/cultural-subtext-of-modern-fantasy-gaming\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural subtext of modern fantasy gaming"},"content":{"rendered":"

My brother brought me a bunch of materials on the D&D 4e today. I’ve also been reading about this and other topics from the internet lately. The new D&D seems to be quite interesting as far as rules design goes; the rules disregard all high-level decisions made by the players so far, which would seem to imply that the actual game part only operates as set-piece battles on a battle grid. Of course not that interesting as a traditional adventure roleplaying game, but the new-style combat-oriented D&D will certainly benefit from having rules to match. Many people have complained that the new D&D resembles a computer game more than anything else, but that’s not a crime.<\/p>\n

However, I rather doubt that I’m going to play the game. From what I’ve seen the new D&D is the same kind of geeky trash that the third edition was, insofar as the fictional content goes. Violence porn with little regard for nuances of setting or situation, disconnected from any cultural roots whatsoever. Just looking at the kind of art they illustrate popular (or wannabe-popular, as the case may be) roleplaying games with makes me want to retch, frankly.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I should explain myself a bit better here. While the cultural trend I’m discussing has been going on for a decade, now, my current inspiration came from looking through the new D&D materials while concurrently checking out the news on Paizo’s new D&D alternative<\/a>. The image here is from Paizo’s page, I’m using it to illustrate my point: while the artistic style and content represented by the barbarian girl here has been the default approach to fantasy roleplaying since the end of the nineties, I still find myself getting immensely annoyed whenever this kind of art is used in different contexts. I simply hate the subtext of this stuff, and in all its prevalence, it’s speaking of a kind of roleplaying subculture that I want to have no part in.<\/p>\n

Considering how cultural subtext is always in the eye of the beholder, it’s perhaps best if I read the image there out for those who don’t know what I’m annoyed about:<\/p>\n