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Join Date 04/2003

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"Elements of Good Fantasy"

Hi Folks

snowed in today so thought I would post something here.

Of course this is just my opinion, but to me the following list elements are a critical part of most fantasy literature. And to the degree that its possible to do, the more these traits can be applied to a fantasy game, the more likely it will success as a fantasy game. What I am trying to say is that most fantasy stories have certain identifiable qualities to them. Agree or dissagree or add to this list. Could be an interesting discussionl.

1. "There is always hope"......A lot of fantasies pit the hero against impossible odds. This concepts seems to irritate a lot of people who play of a strategy game (judging by the number of times I have seen the "spearman vs the tank" debate. Folks playing a straight strategy game may rightly feel that a spearman has absolutly no chance against a tank. But fantasy tales are filled with stories like to lone archer who was able to take down a nearly invincible dragon with one arrow by hitting the one spot where a scale is missing. It does not (nor should not) happen very often, but I think in a fantasy setting there most always be at least a slim chance that the underdog will prevail. This is the stuff that fantasy and ledgends are made of.

2. "Sense of wonder"...a good fantasy always has always has things operating in the world that is just a bit beyond your complete understand. This can translate into a magic system or a world that is seemingly more alive or aware than ours. In the best fantasy these systems are surprising yet understandable. For instance: Once you know that the Goddess of Love's favorite flower was the rose, it sort of makes sense (at some level) that the rose could be used to make a love potion.

3. "internal consistancy"-the best fantasy has a world with rules that may be slightly different than ours but are still internally consistant. I hate it when reading or playing a game with elves and dwarves in a tolkien -like setting a space ship suddenly lands on the battlefield!

4. "Sense of discovery"- often the best of fantasy is a journey through a strange or new land. You are moving through this new world and discovering forgotten temples, lost civilizations, or hidden vallys containing monsters of ledgends. In terms of game play, this means that there needs to be enough variation in the options that you will never never quite be sure what you will find on the other side of the mountains. For a lot of folks- this "world exploration" phase of the game is their favorite part. But it is not enough to just continually find new things, what you discover has to significantly effect gameplay. It can't just be "Oh, we have now run into a new race -the purple elves" instead of the red, or blue, or green elves that we have already run into". It should be more like "we have found a new race we have not heard of before, I hope they are friendly. what can they teach us? What powers or treasures or knowledge do they hold? It sounds like Brad is really taking this seriously by allowing for a "spore-like" exchange of content and channeler with lots of options to customize. Any additional options in the game that will allow of the slight alteration of gameplay (as long as it is internally consistant" should increase this feeling.

5. "Good vs Evil"-Its hard to escape the fact that most fantasy revolves around good vs evil. I think that any way that good and evil can be made to be unique options rather than just symmetric opposites will make for better game play. To this end, good and evil should play very differently. Things like having a paladin (good) and anti-paladin (evil) dont really give these options a different feel -one is dressed in white and one in black basically. The reason the "good vs evil conflict" exists in most fantasy is for the emotional hook. Most of the time we want to care about the good side (or perversly the evil side). Therefore options available for "good" should reflect what it is to be good (nature? life? freedom? light? happyness? truth?) while evil options should reflect its darker nature (death? darkness? loss of will? deception?). I think this will add to the games "emotional hook".

6. "powers" -In the world of fantasy there are normally beings of immense power (compared to mortal man) that are able to have a great impact on the world. In this game it sould like these will be the channlers but it also sounds like there will be other mega-monsters as well. I think that this is in keeping with a lot of fantasy and am excited to see this concept in the game. These are figures to be avoided or carefully approached. They have their own agenda which may not be completely understood. You might have an agreement with this for awhile but you should never completely trust them.

-any thoughts about this and how these things may or may not be part of this game?

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GoodGame

"There is always hope"

I agree that this can get annoying.. when the hero always wins in the movies I get frustrated very quickly. If they does it in a realistic way, fine, cool, idc. but when its far-fetched i find myself thinking yeah right!! But I do agree there needs to be a chance of victory at all times, too often games get to the point where you know you've either won or lost and well that to me just isn't fun.

"Sense of wonder"

I think you have a very good point here. I would hope that every game i end up playing of Elemental will be different. Not that there has to be new things that show up every game, this just isn't realistic. However, i hope that the UI and game mechanics allow for things to be a secret until we "uncover" them. While I have never truly liked the Civilization games for the sheer fact that they never hold my interest by the end game and don't do a good job of pulling you into a realistic world, I did like the fact that they hid certain resources from you until your people actually understood them through research

"internal consistancy"

Well here, I have to say, thank you very much. In other words you mean "realistic fantasy", which for some reason, some people don't think can exist which is erroneous.

"Sense of discovery"

Yes, I hope there are many things to discover from game to game that will keep us excited for many reasons other than just "Oh, yes with that, I'll be able to win". In the end, it is a game, but I'd rather have the world of Elemental give us the experience of exploring and developing a new fantasy world every time we play rather than just being another thing to beat.

"Good vs Evil"

Well, i think good and evil has been done to death. We don't know much about the Fallen yet so i'll leave them out of this discussion. As for men, if they are anything like you and me, then i don't really think you can label them "good" or "evil". Have you ever done anything for yourself, even if it wasn't right? yes, i'll put money on it. why? because your human. Does it make you evil? Absolutely not. Day to day we do things.. some good, some bad. But none of those decisions make us a "paladin" or "anti-paladin" (nice word lol) Now in a fantasy realm, the only good and evil i could see would be angels and demons (possibly dragons??) but im not truly sure if beings such as these will be in Elemental at all. So as for the realm of mortals, i think we should see, even in a nation deemed "good", men who give into their desires and weaknesses more easily (thus making them seem "evil" though truly they are not).

An example for this in game would be a lord in one of your cities of the pious and "good" Kingdom of Altar who is greedy and power hungry.

"powers"

I think power will be a big component, I look forward to seeing a dragon take on "thousands of men" as has been stated by the devs (i believe its been a long time) I look forward to watching heroes develop mostly, having channeler essence being used like steroids for your heroes sounds like a great concept I can't wait to learn more about!

Overall, I agree with you, i just decided i'd comment on each of your topics

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Great stuff all around, but you left out one thing I'm rather fond of: Retrograde Societies.

The basic idea is, the culture, technology and magic that was before the current setting was more powerful and advanced than what went before, and there's lots of really powerful crap lying aroung for the taking. Now, this doesn't mean that the downward trend is permanent and your kindom will hopelessly slid into primitive barbarism, by any means, just that for the time being what happened BEFORE was more advanced than what you have now.

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I'm not against McGuffins, but I think they're far too obvious and too overused nowadays, especially in science fiction and fantasy. It seems like out of every two stories one of them has to do with some artifact that drives the plot. One of the things that I like about strategy games is that the plot is self-motivating and doesn't rely on McGuffins.

I guess the kind of stories I like are where the characters are self-motivated rather than simply reactive.

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I like my fantasy were there is no hope, you know the grim a dirty kind where evil always win because good guys are dumb, but that is just me .

Tbh, I like the kind of games bleebla describe in RPG and quest like things (Dragon Age for example), yeah I love the wonder of exploring in a 4x but I'm more into building a nation than any thing else.

Warder

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good replys all!!

RisingL -I agree with you about humans and moral complexity. It also seems that "the fallen" (from what I have read so far) may be more morally ambigous than "pure evil". This is fine. It is just not a very consistent theme in most fantasy literature. The reason for this thread was to examine the themes common in fantasy and see if it makes sense to place these themes into Elemental and if so-what might be the best way to do it has game rather than as a story. There are of course notable fantasy literature that is missing a few of these elements (and this can make them stand out and be really interesting) but i would venture to say that if a story is missing a lot of these elements it will not be considered a fantasy (or a very popular one). Its sort of like having a Western without guns, or a horror movie with no real monster, or an Indiana Jones movie without old ruins of some sort. You can do it (and it might be a fine movie) but in some ways you have just removed the guts of the story and it wont be held of as an example of what is best in its type. (I don;t know how to spell jeandra).

Scoutdog: Retrograde Societies!!! (smakes forehead). Great addition. I absolutly agree!

Magicwillnz- Mcguffins -not sure what that means. Cliches? (also not spelled correctly)

--Best to all.

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I believe a Mcguffin is a mechanism for plot device which adds nothing else to the universe of the story.

I think a good element of Fantasy is the Prodigal Son. Perhaps from the Fallen point of view. A servant who no-longer has a master ... begins to find his own way in the world ... fallen from the path of the titan, no longer a human as well. Should he shun the humans? unite the fallen? shun other fallen too? Should he attempt at being peaceful? Or try to stick close with the Titan's will of pure power and dominance over others?

eh, don't judge my writing on the merits of the Prodigal Son motiff, but I think it would be intersting to spring up here and there.

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I think "ADVENTURE" is the main element. That and killing things and taking their stuff. That is risk, even mortal, for gain. And probably there should be some "Cliff Hangers" just to make the gamer really question if they haven't taken too much risk, yet a resourceful hero can sometimes overcome anyway.

Also the actual dating of members of the opposite sex and producing offspring. E.g. "DYNASTIES", but also importantly, "ROMANCE". That is, one doesn't always just marry for convenience, but actually practices "courtly love", maybe questing an entire game to win the hand of someone they love.

"PERIL" and "CROSSING SWORDS". Not just combat or killing things, but doing battle with a real risk of death, and a battle that is truly challenging in at least a rock-paper-scissors way, but more importantly won through the use of good tactics, sacrifice, and perseverance. Not just stacks of hitpoints vs. stack of hitpoints.

"SENSE of WONDER" is key for *some* fantasy, but mostly "High Fantasy", where magic and odd things are common; Elemental seems to be "Middle Fantasy". I.e. there's a lot of mundane medieval-life, but then there's also some Merlins, Fire-Drakes, and at least once race seems to have an active pact with supernatural (maybe evil) forces. Probably the "High Fantasy" elements should have a degree of surprise to them each game. Maybe the dragon of one game will be an acid dragon one time, and a fire drake another game. Maybe Fire mana will be more potent than acid mana one game, but not the next. Maybe some Fallen will actually be nice people. Maybe the most powerful strength enhancing gauntlets will only be ogre strength one game, but Storm Giant strength the next game. Maybe one game will actually not have "One Ring to bind them..." but the next will.

On "SENSE of DISCOVERY", I think any good 4X game should have that. Teching, uncovering the unknown parts of the map, finding out the AI is a back-stabber after all,.... But I agree any good fiction should have a "SENSE of DISCOVERING" the previously hidden truth---i.e. the back-story leads to greater revelations in time. E.g. the protagonist has an amazing destiny and untapped powers, yet to even be hinted at.

In general, any good story should have "Internal Consistency".

Thumbs up on "POWERS". Just the extent that the story is "High Fantasy" or something else should determine how potential the powers are and how wide they vary.

"Good vs. Evil" definitely is a troph of some fantasy, but if every single game is good vs. evil, it'll loose replayability, imho. Every game should have the potential to evolve into Good vs. Evil, but not always. A civ might aspire to be the avatar of Goodness, but there might not be evil in the world. One game might have every civ just being neutral, and trying to found the first empire, or to just reunite the first empire.

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