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What is the most generic half-assed fantasy setting in fiction?
- Thread starter Toxi
- Start date
I recall Kingdoms of Amalur turning out as a super rote setting, despite overall enjoying the game.
I don't think I can ever say an Elder Scrolls game just due to how fucking nutty the lore of Elder Scrolls is. The fairly generic-seeming games absolutely bury the lede on some of the wildest and most unique lore there is in gaming. Like the fact that people realizing the world is fictional is a literal thing in the lore. Due to that, mods are technically canon under CHIM.
I don't think I can ever say an Elder Scrolls game just due to how fucking nutty the lore of Elder Scrolls is. The fairly generic-seeming games absolutely bury the lede on some of the wildest and most unique lore there is in gaming. Like the fact that people realizing the world is fictional is a literal thing in the lore. Due to that, mods are technically canon under CHIM.
Like 95% of Isekei anime/manga. And fantss
Good lord this. I remember reading this back in middle school and being shocked how bad it was for how popular it had become. Ducked out after Eldest, that ending was the last straw.
Tolkien himself was inspired by the likes of George Macdonald (his inspiration for orcs/goblins) to be fair, it's not like everyone just rips from LotR.
There are plenty of original fantasy worlds too, but I guess people love their comfy tropes so those are the ones that float to the top.
There are plenty of original fantasy worlds too, but I guess people love their comfy tropes so those are the ones that float to the top.
Kingdoms of Amalur has to be the most basic ass fantasy shit I've ever seen. It has everything and nothing at once.
It was originally meant to be a semi-serialized show with plot and character arcs executed over the course of multiple seasons. The show was developed and initially produced by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who was one of the prime writers on Deep Space Nine.
He never got a chance to execute his vision for the show because of Sorbo, who opposed the dramatic character conflicts and attempts at providing some depth to the stories. Wolfe eventually got pushed out by Sorbo, who proceeded with the simplistic mediocrity that he was more comfortable with.
Wolfe eventually posted his original vision for the show's arc and ending on Usenet and his website years ago. I'm not sure if it's still around or not.
Carnival Row, the new fantasy Amazon Prime series starring Cara Delevingne and Orlando Bloom. Pure, unadultered, generic crap featuring fairies, werewolves, and of course, forbidden half-bloods.
I faintly remember hearing somewhere that a lot of DA:O was inspired by the Witcher books, which would make sense.
yeah whenever i get lost in the wiki shit gets wild.
though even at base level morrowind is a super cool fantasy setting.
I read that ages ago, which is partly why it sticks in my head so much. So much potential, wasted. It sounded fascinating, something like the main cast all splitting off into their own factions.
The same sort story implosion happened to Earth: Final Conflict, except that it actually started OK and then torpedoed itself after Season 1.
i feel like there's a few other anime/manga (and western books as well - riftwar and dragonlance?) that developed out of DND sessions
I want to say Oblivion, but it still has the fantastic Elder Scrolls lore backing it, and there's still some decent world building in that game (especially the expansions)
But goddamnit, Cyrodiil was supposed to be a mismatch of Mesoamerica and Italy, and we got a lame ass LOTR rip-off instead.
But goddamnit, Cyrodiil was supposed to be a mismatch of Mesoamerica and Italy, and we got a lame ass LOTR rip-off instead.
You can have a generic setting and still have an interesting world and lore- Dragon Age! That DnD Lord of the rings look is so overdone and played out lol.
I don't mind generic settings. The story is what matters, and just like there are plenty of great stories to tell in the generic setting that is the real world, there are great stories to tell in generic fantasy worlds. And it's nice when we don't need to have exposition breaks to explain how this setting's elf stand-in is different from the normal elves we're already familiar with.
It's like when fantasy novels make up too many words in an effort to seem different. It often doesn't add anything and just makes it more cumbersome to read.
It's like when fantasy novels make up too many words in an effort to seem different. It often doesn't add anything and just makes it more cumbersome to read.
OP
OP
The thing is, I've played Dungeons and Dragons. There is so much more available to use than what I saw in Goblin Slayer, so the boring world still can't even be excused with the source material.
And it's sometimes better in later games. Yeah, the original colored inside the lines, but later games like Wind Waker, Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild did some cool stuff setting-wise.
Yeah, it makes you really appreciate when everything goes right and a show can execute on its stories and themes.
Basically.
All this thread is going on about series that feature tropes. Because by this thread's posters it seems that any setting that uses established fantasy is half-assed.
The manga of Goblin Hunter is actually pretty good. I hate the anime as well and couldn't make it beyond the 2nd episode but the manga truly is good and you should give it a read just to see how you might feel about it.
I read the manga. Even the spinoff. It has an excessive amount of rape for me to even consider calling it remotely good.
Haven't seen the anime but I find it hard to believe that they would keep all the rape for a TV airing show.
Eh in OoT maybe, they did a lot of interesting stuff with the setting in later games. Wind Waker in particular.
The worldbuilding stopped after the hidden mist arc though. I remember hearing about how Kishi wanted to explore different countries a bit more deeply but his editors rushed him to do a tournament arc. Worldbuilding fell down hard after that. Like, the regions are visually distinct and at least we get a glimpse at how Suna works but...nah. Really disappointing too because it started so well.
Fantasy, i'd say it's Bright, hands down. The base idea is interesting but the execution is so half-assed that it's face palmingly bad.
In Science Fiction, i know i won't make many friends my saying so, but Stargate SG-1. The base concept, taken from the original movie, again is interesting. But the fact that the team almost never stumble on any aliens apart from the Goa'ulds and the Asgardians and that the humans they find always conveniently speak english despite the language didn't exist when the gate was buried or that they almost always are clearly from various human civilisations that where too far away from the gate or didn't exist yet when the travels where still possible is lazy as fuck. I've seen feudal japan dudes, i've seen medieval knights and castles (tied to Merlin and Camelot because why the fuck not), i've even seen fucking Amish people. In space ! SG-1 was lazy as fuck.
In Science Fiction, i know i won't make many friends my saying so, but Stargate SG-1. The base concept, taken from the original movie, again is interesting. But the fact that the team almost never stumble on any aliens apart from the Goa'ulds and the Asgardians and that the humans they find always conveniently speak english despite the language didn't exist when the gate was buried or that they almost always are clearly from various human civilisations that where too far away from the gate or didn't exist yet when the travels where still possible is lazy as fuck. I've seen feudal japan dudes, i've seen medieval knights and castles (tied to Merlin and Camelot because why the fuck not), i've even seen fucking Amish people. In space ! SG-1 was lazy as fuck.
Damn, I didn't know this. Well, I guess I hate Oblivion even more now lol
"What is the most generic half-assed fantasy setting in fiction?"
People posting Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age have a word with yourself. Nothing half arsed about them, and if you actually look under the hood there's plenty that isn't generic. You may not like them or find them tropey, for good reason or not.
People posting Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age have a word with yourself. Nothing half arsed about them, and if you actually look under the hood there's plenty that isn't generic. You may not like them or find them tropey, for good reason or not.
Yeah, Dragon Age is very interesting and the Elder Scrolls... Damn.
The people who developped the lore of the Elder Scrolls where clearly on some sort of substances. The concept of "Chim" just by itself is a wonderfully crafted mind-fuck (almost litterally). It's to a point that passed the release of Morrowind, the devs have spent a good amount of time retconning stuff to make it less weird and more manageable to put in the games.
Goodkind's Sword of Truth setting is super generic. I don't even remember what it's called.
I guess BDSM being it's own school of magic might make it slightly more original. Still bad, though.
I guess BDSM being it's own school of magic might make it slightly more original. Still bad, though.
Can you expand on this / is there an elder scrolls wiki link to it? I only played a bit of morrowind and Skyrim but this is cool
There's for sure wikis about it. I only know the french one but i'm sure there's one in english as well.
But basically, the world and it's inhabitants are all the dream of the god Lorkhan. Those who can develop some sort of waking dream knowledge of it can become gods (like Vivec for instance) but those who fully awake from this state, well, they awake, thus, exit the dream, and thus cease to exist. That's what happened to the Dwemers.
They turned it around by Inquisition but the first game is like someone threw Tolkien magnetic poetry at a fridge and called it a story bible.
At a surface level read maybe. The characters and races were well thought out and acted and some of the side plots were more interesting than many other games even if the main plot basically revolved around gathering everyone to kill a dragon. You could make an argument that its a bit generic or uninspired in areas, but "most generic and half-assed" ? heck no
Explain how it's half arsed or genericThis one is easy. Slam dunk.
Do we count satires of generic half-assed fantasy settings? Where the genericism is absolutely intentional, but presented in an amusing way?
I think some of the modern Magic:The Gathering planes might count. The original settings were fairly unique (they had their fair share of DnD tropes for sure) but some recent settings are just wizard Epcot ("It's Egypt, but wizards!" or maybe "It's wizards, but Egypt!" It's hard to tell).
If you're willing to go down a deep rabbit hole, https://bethesda.net/community/topic/13875/how-to-become-a-lore-buff has a break down of pretty much all the lore. It's a lot. As someone who loves game lore and gets super into it, It's probably my favorite lore in any game universe. It completely changes how I view Elder Scrolls games, knowing under the surface of all the generic fantasy the world is crazy and unique.
Oblivion felt kinda uninspired to me. Especially after the flavourful world in Morrowind. I never felt that eager to explore Tamriel that much.
Warhammer has been doing exactly that for like decades. You have literal Steam tanks, rocket launchers, lightning guns, airships, jetpacks, tractor beams and nukes against swordsmen, vampires, living statues, giant dinosaurs, magical frogs and mammoths with shrines on their backs. It's fun!
But... the manga, even moreso than the anime, actually goes out of its way to use the rape scenes for titilation? What's good about that??
Yeah, Warcraft 1 was very much. Orcs are bad, and Humans are good. Kill the evil Wizard the unleashed the Orcs. Warcraft II was more of the same, except now with Dwarves, Gnomes and Elves vs Trolls, Ogres and Goblins.
Warcraft III was when we finally got some solid story telling and some unique concepts. The entire Orc Compain is one my favorite RTS moments of all time. Playing WoW Classic now and seeing Magtheridon's chest plate and skull outside Thrall's place really brought it all back, too.
Probably Record of Lodoss War... It's literally just someone's AD&D game transcribed into a script. Pretty art aside, it had me falling asleep almost immediately. Runner up for me is whatever the '97 Fire Emblem anime was.
I never said that the rape in the manga was good though, just that I thought that the manga was a far better product than the anime. I always considered the mangaka's usage of rape as a tool to illustrate how depraved the goblins are rather than a means of sexually stimulating the reader.
Maybe it's just a matter of perspective. I don't think recent chapters of the manga or side stories really use rape as gratuitously as they once did but I could be wrong.
I hate how true it as as well, but Dark Arisen and the "post-game/endgame" are probably some of the hardest hitting moments I've ever had in videogames lol.
