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General Fantasy Thread
Because we need a place where everyone can argue with Alex about whether or not people have invented a sword-fu technique that can successfully disarm a 3rd level Evocation wizard.
Comments
I'll start a discussion in the fantasy thread by bringing up sci-fi.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/08/adam-roberts-political-soul-sf ;
So basically, under this link is a claim that political leanings of SF writers are reflected in the worlds of their creation to a greater extent than in more mundane genres. I was thinking if any of you think a similar principle can be observed in fantasy, or if you have any thoughts on real politics being (or not) reflected in fantasy worlds.
(edit: apologies to lrdgck, though I had been working on this post for a couple hours.)
Elements of magic! Or of fantasy worlds in general! What elements should there be? A few of us were discussing this on IRC earlier.
First, there's the classical elemental systems. The Greek four-element system consists of fire, water, earth, and wind. The Chinese five-element system consists of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
The Greek system is pretty popular as a baseline elemental magic system. The Golden Sun series uses this, for example. Culex's four crystals in Super Mario RPG are of these four elements. Typically, they're connected in some sort of cycle; water almost always beats fire, wind or earth beats water, and fire beats whichever one doesn't.
Fortune Summoners deserves a special mention as it uses them a bit oddly. Fire and water are not directly connected but are instead opposed elements (if you've played the in-game "elemental rock-paper-scissors"). Furthermore, you never get access to the earth element in the game (there are a few late-game enemies that shoot dark balls at you and those might be the basic earth-element spell, or may just be shadow-element). The game also has non-elemental magic spells.
Mega Man Battle Network also has a four-element system connected in a cycle, but instead of having earth and wind, it has wood and electricity. It does have fire and water (known here as "aqua"). That said, these may be mere representations of a system that has some other significance, since these are virtual, computer-based abstractions, even in-universe; they might just be shorthand/jargon for certain subtypes of viruses whose code has particular traits.
Chrono Trigger has a four-element system but organizes the elements differently. Fire is pretty standard, as is water (which includes ice), but what was renamed "lightning" for the US release was originally "sky", which includes both lightning and revival abilities -- a sort of combination of electricity and holiness, I guess. Shadow, on the other hand, is the element that happens anytime the other elements are combined together. Curiously, not all techniques are considered magic, though some non-magical techniques do also have elemental affinities.
Magic the Gathering has a five-element system where they just use colors instead; the colors also have strong thematic connotation, while the elements themselves are rarely particularly effective against any other elements. While the colors red, blue, green, white, and black can be respectively associated with fire, water, vegetation/life, holiness, and darkness, they are often also associated with other traits, such as (respectively) chaos and emotion, knowledge and rationality, instinct and nature, order and restriction, and destruction and sacrifice.
The Final Fantasy series usually gives black magicians a standard set of fire, ice/blizzard, and lit/bolt/lightning spells. However, the series has far more elements: water (separate from ice), wind, poison/"bio", darkness, holy (the element of healing and revival spells), and "gravity" (reserved for percentage damage spells). There are also non-elemental spells, and occasionally other "elements" associated with particular attributes (e.g. arrows in FFIV have an "aerial" element, which most flying/floating enemies are weak to).
The Pokémon series goes totally nuts with an element system. It has a 17-type system with multiple loops of resistances, immunities, and weaknesses. Abilities are not considered magical, but just generic supernatural abilities, I guess. The full list is: normal (like a non-element), fire, water, electric, grass (all attacks themed on vegetation), ice (separate from water), fighting, poison, ground, flying, psychic, bug, rock, ghost, dragon, dark, steel.
Pulling from that list, I had a few thoughts about a more comprehensive magic system:
* non-elemental: this is for magic spells that don't have an attached element.
* fire and ice: while these are usually separate elements, one could conceivably put them together, if you think of them as heat and cold, since they would both involve manipulation of thermal energy. In fact, Dungeons and Dragons already calls the latter "cold" rather than "ice".
* water
* electricity
* nature/life: this could encompass vegetation-themed attacks as well as power of living things to grow and regenerate, and the power of life itself. Arguably, this should be the element of at least some healing and revival spells. It should also contain poison. (Anyone else annoyed that poisonpowder was poison-type while the other "powder" moves were grass-type?)
* ground/earth/rock
* air/wind/sky (some of the flying-type moves are basically this anyway)
D&D also has an "acid" type, while Pokémon shoves that under the "poison" category, just giving it different attack mechanics. Unfortunately, if you make an "acid" element, it raises the question of whether there should be a "base" element -- so perhaps a "corrosion" element?
D&D considers psionics as a whole separate class of magic-like abilities. So maybe psychic/psionics is an alternative means of manifesting magical abilities. Of course that raises the question of where magic itself comes from...
(Incidentally, the term "psynergy" in Golden Sun suggests something about where magic in that series comes from.)
A light/holiness/sacred element is popular, but if you look at the ghost type and think of it as an element, that also raises the question of whether this is, like psychic/psionics, an alternative means of manifesting magical abilities -- instead of using a mental power source, it uses a spiritual power source, drawing upon soul power and such. If so, darkness and holiness might be two sides of the same coin the way heat/cold are.
In the Pokémon series, it's interesting that the psychic type take the role of "light" as a contrast to the dark type, in some cases (e.g. contrast espeon and umbreon). On the other hand, the ghost type is a bit of an alternative dark type for mischievous stuff. Curiously, the move "Shadow Ball" is a ghost type move, not a dark type move.
But if that's not a whole 'nother class of magic-like abilities, we have the darkness/shadow element and the holy element.
I think it may actually make sense to have healing moves in all the elements. But perhaps it costs more in some of them. I can see flavor justifications in multiple elements for, say, revival: it's obvious in the case of a life/nature element; for fire, it could be themed on the Phoenix; for spirit/ghost, it could be about control of a wayward soul that's recently left its body. One could then say that using the Phoenix's abilities might take more skill from a fire-element user than enhancing biological processes of healing, for example.
If light is a separate element, it could be for, well, light-related things, such as beams, lasers, glares, flashes, illusions, solar energy, and such. If so, perhaps there could be a sound element, as well.
I wonder if there should be an element for exotic things. Pokémon has the dragon type, which is one example. In Super Mario RPG, you get the Star Rain, Dark Star, Meteor Rain, and Meteor Shower spells, while Final Fantasy has Meteo and Meteor spells (sometimes both in the same game), as well as "Quasar". This latter batch seems to suggest there could be a use for a "star" type; how it would relate to "heaven" or "sky" elements is an open question.
Metal or steel as an element is often pigeonholed to mechanical enemies like robots, or ones that use metal blades. I wonder how it would work as an actual element of magic.
According to Chinese belief, "metal" is the energy found in metallic elements, diamond, electricity, and such.
It isn't an element, though. Just a damage typing. Not the same thing.
Maybe I've played too many videogame RPGs, where there is little distinction between those two.
You know, as fond as I am about >Water, Fire, Earth, and Air. Maybe it's time to start using scientific discoveries to make more realistic fantastical elements
Also, I'm pretty sure there exists more than 1 standard of weapon in the entirety of the world's history, you don't need a sword in every "generic medieval" fantasy setting.
Also, considering just how much conflict can come from 1 race (humans) It seems rather silly that most fantasy settings will include an "Always chaotic evil race"
Realistically, I expect that since Technology can now replicate magic, that any setting with magic will now use it in similar ways to technology (used as a means, and not a goal)
I don't buy the idea of a world where nobody came up with the concept of a blade you hold in your hand to cut people with. They don't need to be the "default," but it wouldn't make sense for them to not exist at all.
Of course, bows really won the world. Everybody knows that.
I'd love to see a spear-wielding main character in a generic European fantasy world.
Granted, you get Erika first. Who is a sword wielder.
hmm, I really need to play that game then.
It doesn't work like that
The dark type in Japan is the Evil type, and the Fighting type essentially boils down to being the hero type
There is no light/dark, but instead good/evil
I thought it was psychic -> ghost -> dark -> psychic? Is it also psychic -> fighting -> dark -> psychic?
Is that all of Japan, or just Pokemon?
It's why the people who say "There should be a Light Type in Pokemon!!" are wrong.
^ Yes.
I'd say spears.
Anyway, a part of the narrative "issue" with polearms is that they look really odd to be casually carrying around in polite company; usually they'd be stored in private storage or an armoury until they're needed or required transport. This social standard is commonly implied or nodded towards (even if not consciously) in a lot of fiction. Think about how often you can tell a person is specifically a guard because they're carrying around a polearm in town, while everyone else is unarmed, or has swords or daggers. A spear, poleaxe, halberd, glaive or whatever gives off more warlike implications, whereas a sword implies a more private kind of martial strength.
This isn't to say that protagonists can't use them, but the context has to be right. If you're going for a realistic or semi-realistic medieval setting and the main character isn't a soldier, then there probably won't be many opportunities to put a polearm in their hands. By extension, the further out you go, the more acceptable it'll obviously be.
We can probably chalk that up to the same reasons spears, knives and bows are equally or more ubiquitous -- swords fill out certain roles in terms of combat functionality. After all, the concept of a sword isn't far removed from that of a dagger or a spear. It's not difficult to look at a dagger and go "What if it was bigger?", or a spear and go "What if it was sharp almost all the way?".
Of course, swords are mostly used in fiction because they're cool. Which kinda sucks in a way, because their actual application is vastly more diverse and sophisticated than their appearance suggests (although, to be fair, this is also true of spears, daggers and whatnot). I usually appreciate it when works of fiction stick to the basics but get them right rather than trying go all swordmaster and ending up with something that no sane person would use in an actual fight. Wuxia shenanigans does have its place, but it can just as easily get in the way. I've noticed a pretty big shift in the way swordsmanship has been perceived in the 20th century, too -- it used to be largely understood that actions take place at the same time (look at Errol Flynn films), but lately there's been a lot more "you attack, I defend, I attack, you defend" going on. I feel as though that kind of pacing detracts from the intensity of a fight scene, or combat mechanics in video games. As infantile as much of the swordsmanship is in a lot of 20th century media, it often successfully gives the impression that two or more people are actually fighting for their lives.
I guess it's kind of unreasonable to say this after going on a realism spiel, but it's also pretty annoying when films in particular try to use elements of real swordsmanship but half-arse them. Some real techniques are kind of odd, but make sense in their intended context; for instance, gripping a sword by the blade and using the pommel to bludgeon someone is a good call when the fight takes place in heavy armour. It's just stupid and inefficient (most of the time) if the fight is in light armour or no armour. So a lot of recent media has been trying to express how well it's done its homework, when it obviously only skimmed the material. And you can say that it's not the job of media to be accurate, which is true, but these productions hire professional choreographers whose job it is to know this stuff. The ultimate result is pretentious historical illiteracy that doesn't end up producing a good fight scene.
Then why does ghost -> dark?
It doesn't. It's not very effective.
But actually "ghost > dark" would make more sense. Spirits punish evil.
I guess they explain it with evil not being afraid of spirits?
> attempting to put logic into Pokémon type matchups
That way lies madness.
That practice is extremely uncommon outside of D&D settings, and is viewed upon as very racist at best nowadays.
In D&D settings, it's different. Good and evil are definite forces of nature, and people announcing themselves as, say, "lawful good" isn't just self-righteousness. It's a statement of a simple, concrete and easily proven (with a detect [alignment] spell) truth.
Dark is super effective against Ghost for gameplay reasons. If it weren't, the only counter to Ghost would be itself. This would make Ghost potentially stronger than Dragon (an already broken element), given its immunity to Normal.
Ghost didn't seem too broken in gen 1 when there was one move in the entire game that was super effective on it.
That was because the only Ghost-type was weak to Psychic, the hands-down best, most commonly used and most broken element in the game.
True. Nonetheless, I don't think Ghost is particularly close to being broken. (Neither is Dragon, fwiw.)
I'm not saying that it is. I'm saying that it would be if Dark didn't counter it.
Right, and I disagree. Normal has only one weakness, too.
Normal isn't supereffective against anything, is resisted by Rock and Steel, and can't hit Ghost at all.
Ghost is super effective against Psychic and itself, and hits everything that isn't Steel or Normal for neutral damage (and there's always Focus Blast to cover Normal and Steel types)
Anyways, about the swords discussion:
On any given day, a normal person would rather shoot lightning from his hands than use a big hunk of metal, sword-shaped or otherwise. Magic ftw!
Yeah but would you still shoot the lightning if you learned that you had to speak a specific word as the trigger? You could set your house on fire if you were the sort that talks in your sleep.
Well, that's because we know that swinging a big hunk of metal takes quite a bit of effort. Since magic doesn't exist in real life, we don't know what shooting lightning from our hands would entail.
Electric has only one weakness and is comparable to Ghost offensively. Still not broken. Hell, there's an Electric-type with no weakness at all. I think you've heard of it? It's not exactly tearing the metagame apart.
Anyway this is pretty off-topic, probably best to try and rerail.
Edit: Oh look and there was a rerail before this even got posted, lol.