Alright let’s just say it Dragon Age is pretty damn unimaginative. One would have assumed part of the reason Bioware made a new fantasy IP was because they wanted to get away from the “boring” Dungeons and Dragons license. If that was the case then Bioware failed hard, Dragon Age is a lot more generic than Dungeons and Dragons ever was.
Need I remind you Dungeons and Dragons contains creatures like these. Okay so they’re kind of stupid but at least they’re original.
In Dragon Age you will fight humans, darkspawn (orcs), abominations (daemons), corpses (zombies) and in one mission werewolfs. Holy crap dude don’t strain your creative muscles there. As for the human races you’ve got Fereldans (British), Antivians (Sicilian gangsters) and Orlesians (French). The non-humans are dwarfs who have tragically lost their once powerful empire and elves who have tragically lost their once powerful empire.
If Bioware had stayed at the Dungeons and Dragons teat they could have used the Giff. They’re friggin mercenary hippopotamuses that wield black power weapons and come from space! Make that a playable race damn it. Hell just make a Spelljammer game already.
Then we could get our giant space hamster on.
In comparison as a work of imagineering Dragon Age is freaking dull. That’s not to say it’s poorly written cause it’s not, it’s just that it’s very safe. Which to me sums up the last ten years of videogame writing. The craft is constantly improving, but becoming more dull and course in subject matter.
Let me give you an example. During the first dungeon of Baldur’s Gate 2 you come across a room filled with vats. Floating inside these vats are a series of identical women. When you let one of the women out of the tanks you discover she is a clone of a woman the evil sorcerer who runs the place was once in love with. Having lost his only love, the sorcerer tried to clone his former flame but failed. Even thought the clone was identical to the woman he did not love her. He killed the clone and continued to breed more hoping to one day solve the puzzle. Eventually he gave up and left the clones to rot away alone, there they remained sentient and miserable knowing that they have failed to perform the only function for which they were created.
It’s a sad tale and simultaneously manages to paint the sorcerer as sympathetic and totally evil. It’s a story that can only exist in speculative fiction.
In contrast the villain in the origin story of my Dwarf was a dwarven crime lord who the game made me hate by having him give his minions permission to rape my character’s sister. Ooh how dark and mature, why don’t you just have him curb stomp a puppy while you’re at it?
It would be tempting to just blame this all on the increasing homogenisation of videogames, dust off my hands and go to lunch. But I don’t think that’s the whole truth. Compare and contrast.
This rather lovely image is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ batshit insane A Princess on Mars. The novel was written in 1917 a long time before JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I have not read it.
Obviously this is the cover to Robert Jordan’s A New Spring written in 2004 a long time after JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I have not read it.
I’m going to generalise like heck right now so stay calm. Since the explosive popularity of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings fantasy fiction has become increasingly generic, which is to say it’s become increasingly like Tolkien. Pre-Tolkien fantasy was a demented hybrid of westerns, science fiction, and mythology. It was ludicrous and at times pretty stupid but at least there wasn’t an elf to be found. Now all our fantasy fiction appears to be set in middle earth and the only creatures we fight are the ones Tolkien popularised.
The process did not occur over night. Michael Moorcock wrote energetic, original material and along with Tolkien his work is seminal in influencing both the Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer game worlds. Other truly visionary fantasy writers like Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe also had influence shaping early fantasy games. But the problem is that everyone who is interested in fantasy fiction has read Tolkien, it’s the touch stone, the common link and as Moorcock, Vance and Wolfe become increasingly antiquated Tolkien continues to be exposed to new generations.
Tolkien endures, while the rest is forgotten, to the point where Tolkien is all we’ve got left.
But there are indeed current fantasy writers who are breaking the mould, China Mieville and Neil Gaiman write wonderful inventive fiction. Sadly their work is in the minority and so far it’s influence has failed to trickle into our game worlds.
But what happens when fantasy writers end up constantly recreating middle earth? Well interestingly they begin to focus more on character and politics. Recent fantasy writers like Robin Hobb and Robert Jordan may not craft worlds as original and mind blowing as Moorcock, Vance and Wolfe but they do write about characters and themes that are far more engaging and real than their predecessors. Freed from the burden of creating interesting creatures or metaphysical systems of magic recent fantasy writers have instead decided to reflect on the complexity of the real world.
Which is what Dragon Age does, the world of Ferelden isn’t anything you haven’t seen before but it’s people and themes are. At least for a videogame they’re pretty original.
This is part of an ongoing series about Dragon Age: Origins to read the first entry click here.
Well there is a valid reason for that. Because they are recreations of Middle Earth, it is a place that we are very familiar with in the big picture. We understand how things work, what the major players are, regardless of the world, so the sotryteller doesn’t have to spend large portions of time explaining that to us.
Really that’s how literary fiction works as well. Those works take place in our Earth, something we are already intimately familiar with, so they can skip how things work here and move straight onto characters and situations. Its called tropes. The more you use in you fiction the less that has to be explained. It becomes a problem when tropes begin to override your work as many knock offs tend to do.
Bioware had done a pretty good job of avoiding that, mostly. And in a way are reenvisioning some of the tropes of the modern fantasy genre. Of course that’s only western fantasy. You go to Japan or China, or the Middle East there are completly different fantasy tropes.
Yeah but new fantasy doesn’ty really have that much in common with Tolkien either. People just think it does because it has elves and stuff.
Really – how much fantasy these days is written by committed Catholic historians with a solid grounding in Norse mythology and an interest in linguistics? Not a lot.
PS. you should def. read A Princess of Mars. It’s great.
I think with Fantasy today it is a matter of writer’s focus. They can expend alot of energy crafting the world at the risk of not being able to engage the reader long enough to also tell a tale. If some pre-existing and understood themes are used then it acts as an easy way to draw them in and get your message across. Beyond the generic fantasy elements in Dragon Age, Bioware also fall back on many other pre-established Western RPG elements for combat, leveling and inventory. This is for the same reason a writer might use generic fantasy, so that they can expend energy on developing the choices and dialogue options of the game.
ps. I’ll mention that Wheel of Time is not that generic (no elves or dwarfs here)
It only really relates to Tolkien in that it is pretty epic in scope. Then again I have an investment of all 14 or so books of time so I pretty much have to defend it.
@ TheGameCritique: Yeah I get that using tropes makes your material easier to chug down but Dragon Age is a 60 hour game, I think 60 hours is more than enough time to introduce me to a totally original setting. One of the reasons I really enjoy fantasy fiction is the world building. As you say literary fiction doesn’t have to make a whole new world so it can do characters and themes more justice. They will always be able to that better.
Fanstasy fiction is great at taking me somewhere I’ll never get to see in the real world. Which is something videogames also do really well. It should be a match made in heaven.
@ Lord Rocket:
They may not have a solid grounding in Norse mythology or an interest in linguistics but I’d say they have a solid grounding in Tolkien and an interest in Tolkien.
Although maybe that’s not fair in Dragon Age’s case. I’ve heard they were mainly influenced by Song of Fire and Ice. In which case they’re just interested in someone interested in Tolkien.
PS. Google tells me that A Princess of Mars is on project Gutenberg. Now if I could just get over reading text on screen I’d be golden.
@ Gerald Delaney
Wheel of Time isn’t too bad I guess, at least it’s partly influenced by Dune.
Trollocs are still Orcs though.
Sure, but it’s kind of like how heaps of SF has space ships and ludicrous super science, but no-one goes, ‘pfft this has space ships and ludicrous super science, this is generic Doc Smithian sci fi.’
It’s a bit unfair tagging one writer as ‘generic’ because other authors have used their inventions in lame ways, especially when that one author has both themes and intentions that are very, very different to their imitators (which was the point I was trying to prove).
PS. Mister Burroughs, as much as I appreciate him, was a massive hack who mercilessly strip mined every idea he had. As such it’s pretty easy to find any one of the later Mars books in second hand bookshops for super cheap. If you don’t like the idea of reading a book on screen, know that if you read any one of them you’ll get the general idea pretty well.
The Blue people weren’t in Princess anyway, now that I think about it.
Yeah but science fiction is way more diverse in subject matter than Fantasy. Tolkien obviously dominates the field in a way that no science fiction writer has ever done. HG Wells and Asimov are chalk and cheese but they both contribute greatly to the field.
I mean even the mass market is dominated by works as diverse as Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Jurassic Park and Aliens. Where fantasy is only really understood in terms of LotR.
Oddly Harry Potter appears to stand on it’s own, in fact I’m kind of surprised we never saw an explosion of boy wizard fiction in the same way we’re seeing all this Twilight derived paranormal romance.
In my opinion, LotR world is as much a classic than a base for scenarist, novelist and writer… but you have some writer that succeed in creating different fantasy worlds such as Robin Hobb, which you mentioned as a more character/political-story oriented, but there is also David Gemmel. Why people tend too often to skip Gemmel world? There are no dwarf, no elf, no orc, no hobbit, or Tolkien elements… I’m often wondering why there isn’t game or movie based on this world.
My 2 cents :
Actually LotR is also very generic, it’s the fight between good and evil, it’s about temptation mainly. The world is very binary, each element is cleary identifiable : dwarves are selfish and greedy, human jealous and despaired, elves are proud, hobbit gluttonous, orcs represent wrath. The hero is tempted by the ring (devil), especially during his journey through the swamps & no man’s lands (desert). We can also find the same elements in books from Moorcock, Feist, Hobb, etc, it’s just the narrative treatment that differs : Moorcock likes to immerge the reader in weird worlds, Hobb is focused on feelings (quite boring imo), etc.
Well you see my point now : all the mechanics from LotR come from the Bible -as fantasy elements are mainly inspired from nordic folklores and legends. So i disagree with you when you say everything is generic nowadays because of Tolkien influence.
It’s our society who forges this way of thinking : good, evil, good & bad guys, morale, temptation, judgement. These are the main values of our modern cultures and were born with religion. For example, they didn’t exist in the Roman Empire culture and they emerged in Europe with the rising of catholocism. When we see a movie, read a book, as our culture printed in our mind this moralistic pattern, we feel comfortable with those elements, we almost need them to find a story convincing. So I wouldn’t blame authors about that. I would even consider those principles as a frame for stories, like the relativity theory is a frame for science.
So we’ll always find orc or dwarves in fantasy. Names, aspect and background will be different, but concepts will stay the same. I think it’s nearly impossible to break through those limits, and even if we succeed in that “quest”, we would probably be too confused by the story to fully adhere.
For instance, let’s consider a story told by a sahuagin (sahuagin are shark like humanoid creatures from ADD universe, who are mainly driven by violence and pillage). What it would look like ? Probably that he killed a lots of humans, it was great, he became important, ate the heart of his ennemies from his own kind to climb higher in hierarchy. He would talk about his slaves that are dumb and ugly, that he beats them because it’s fun. Etc, etc. This kind of story would probably be forbidden, because it’s out of the frame : apology of slavery, violence, xenophobia, cannibalism. But from the point of view of a sahuagin, this story would seem perfectly normal. Maybe dull even.
Well maybe i went too far i don’t know, but imho I think it’s still an interesting point.
Oh totally Lyndon. Science fiction , 9.5 / 10′s of it, is very creative . Science fiction is the literature of ideas. It’s the most creative and inventive stuff you can find anywhere.
On the other hand fantasy is the most unoriginal stuff imaginable. Basically everyone just followed Tolkien’s lead and never looked back. Fantasy is the literature of unoriginality if you ask me. Even mainstream genre’s like thrillers have often have more original ideas that your typical fantasy novel. Not even going to get into how predictable fantasy RPGs are.
Dragon Age is a great game but it is incredibly unoriginal and I totally agree with this great article. Would it have been that much of a strain of the imagination to at least make up a few new creatures? Like really. It’s like it was their goal to become the definitive, stereotypical DnD / Tolkien inspired fantasy RPG.
RJ’s bks r nwhe cls t gnrc. Thy r bslt mtr fntsy. Hmns nly. N thr spcs. wnt t crtcs smthn fr bng rp ff, HP thr hv th prfct bnch f nnsns t blw r gns ff.. ll.. nd crrctn, RJ strtd hs wrk n 198x nt 2004.. th pr mn dd n 2007..
@theusurper
Thank you for your insightful commentary.
Of course you appear to have missed the point where I never said Robert Jordan began writing in 2004 I merely stated that New Spring was written then and holy shit a simple trip to wikipedia confirms I am right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Spring
Of course if you wanted to be nitpicking little bitch you could have called me on not getting the name of the novel right.
Although I did like it when you said “They are absolute mature fantasy. Humans only.” That shit made my day. Cheers.
To actually contribute to the current discussion i would say that i don’t agree with the comment sentiment that today’s fantasy literature is dull or rip-offs of tolkien. It just so happens that elfs and dragons and orcs are one part of fantasy. The epic good vs bad battles that make good money cos they’r a proven concept since time immemorial(really old hindu literature like the mahabharath are like 10k yrs old.. so..) Now this generalisation that seems to be the premise of this article comes about cos of the concept of the mainstream. That is to say most people read only the real famous books(sometimes such worthless nonsense makes it to this category. I’ll not name anything so as not to start a flame war.) and make up generalised notions on the entire fantasy genre. This conception is bound to be quite off the mark as most of the experimental/novel books don’t quite make it to the mainstream. However that is not to say they are not terribly acclaimed in the fantasy circles. Try the mistborn trilogy by brandon sanderson. Epic story true but very different. try The Sword Of Truth(the first book’s terribly boring though.)
Actually more than Tolkien’s influence, it’s DnD that really influences most of the authors who go down that path of elves, dwarves etc.
On another note, trollocs are more troll than orc. Omit the regeneration capabilities tho. RJ’s story is more captivity bcos of the power struggles and the characters, esp his portrayal of powerful women though very onesided it is frustrating and funyy..
Okay thanks.
Yeah I’m not saying all modern fantasy is just recycling Tolkien constantly but I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with making broad generalisations when talking about the mainstream of a genre.
As for Robert Jordan, that’s sort of my point in a round about way. I read and enjoyed Robert Jordan’s books for the political power plays, interesting characters and humorous sexual politics. That stuff was all really good and you wouldn’t find it Tolkien.
But a lot of the world building doesn’t feel hugely original. But as I said to Gerard Delaney Wheel of Time isn’t too bad in this respect. The trolloc are orcs thing was meant as a little bit of a joke.
hey im sorry if i seemed to have acted like a regular net troll..:D and my first post seems to have turned up entirely stripped of vowels.. lol.. i myself found it hard to read..
u dont have to post this but i felt i shld apologise for my choice of words seem very trollish.. 
.. and given we’r on the topic of well developed worlds, i am looking for a good read.. any suggestions?
ok i read ur about page and figured y my post was stripped of vowels.. interesting tactic..
You may have also had the misfortune of posting when I was hungover and not really in a good mood. I wouldn’t take it personally we all from time to time talk shit on the internet.
As for recommendations I don’t really know what you’ve read or what you’re into but I really enjoyed the following novels.
Perdido Street Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_Street_Station
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Strange_&_Mr_Norrell
American Gods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gods
They’re all pretty mainstream and easy to find.
Good read (redirected from Gamasutra). You should have emphasized the ‘wroking within a generic storyline’ a bit more though.
Games do still have a LONG way to go to parallel other mediums regarding the abstract story. But which other medium except games can give you the visuals – lite though Dragon Age might be.
Very nice blog Lydon. Good call on ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell’, excellent fantasy and very original, a sort of delicious cross between some modern fantasy/Gaimen’s ‘Sandman’ ish ideas, interesting comment/parallel on real world history (I often found myself wondering how much was really based on real events, kind of like a subtle version of Pratchett’s Discworld).
Completely agree on Dragon Age, was foolishly taken in by the idea that this might be somewhat ‘origninal’, depressed to find it utterly generic. Even the morality/interaction was unorigninal – Witcher blurred the morality thing and played with fantasy tropes in a more original way, I thought, and the interaction was very familiar from other Bioware games.
As someone else mentioned, it may be a very good game but it feels like (kind of like WoW was coming to think of it) an attempt to make the best ‘generic’ game, rather than a real landmark contribution to games in general.
Started Jade Empire recently and it’s a massive contrast – hugely more impressed but JE’s world, setting, originality and even combat system – so nice to play very much an ‘action’ based RPG that still has a more deep and interesting plot and a familiar but origninal world.
It’s totally true that Tolkien has produced an army of clones, nearly all fantasy I’ve come across is obviously set in his world, and very little even subverts or varies it in an interesting way.
Which is a shame because there are many other sources that could be drawn upon. Norse mythology itself, for example – Giants and Dragons, yes, but not much in the way of elves and dwarves, interesting worlds and creatures.
It is a shame because it would be wonderful to have an RPG that makes an interesting world again, they’ve been so rare.
That’s why I loved Morrowind and was really disappointed with Oblivion – the first a nice spin on the familiar tropes, the second simply the familiar tropes (and a personal gripe of Morrowind’s weakness being a tedious combat system, which Oblivion claimed to have revamped but actually simply replicated).
If we’re going down the generic road, I think I’d much rather have it ‘generic’ based on a pre-existing world that has more depth – why Dragon Age when, for example, all the D&D source material is around?
The could at least have really twisted it a bit like Morrowind or The Witcher did, but it doesn’t feel like that at all.
Another good one for more generic ‘fantasy’ but with excellent World Creation is Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Earthsea’ series – classics and highly recommended.
I’d also recommend Iain M Banks new culture novel ‘Matter’, which combines his great space opera with a bit of ‘medieval’ fantasy world creation that actually manages some origninality.
Avatar is another one, just in terms of interesting world and creatures.
Coming to think of it, Dungeon Keeper and Overlord also deserve mentions in terms of subversion of these tropes. I wish they’d make a new Dungeon Keeper, a great game which still stands alone in terms of the brilliance of it’s concept and design (being able to switch from strategy to FPS is a concept that could be realised so much better now, in a setting that is crying out for what Dungeon Keeper offered even more so than back then.) Mind you, I could say much the same for Syndicate. Man I wish those games would return.
Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get into this game again some time but, given reviews, was disappointed at how incredibly generic it was – very similar to Oblivion really. Proabably a really great game but both described as something really new, when neither one is, and in fact the creators of both games have far more original and better realised worlds in their game stables – creatively a step back for both of them.
I’ll definitely keep an eye on this blog though, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my little browse today, thanks!
Sorry, Lyndon – damn my eyes and horrible spelling.