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Standard Fantasy Setting: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"There's something terribly ''weird'' about the standard fantasy setting, not least of which that 'Standard Fantasy Setting' can be uttered completely without irony. Look at us; we're a civilization so steeped in escapism that we've managed to find mundanity in something that doesn't exist and never will (no matter what your [[Furry Fandom|Otherkin]] friend might say). Why is it accepted fact that [[Our Elves Are Better|Elves]] fire bows and arrows and commune with trees? That was [[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien's]] thing; without him, elves would just about be qualified to sell Rice Krispies. And he made [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|Dwarves]] wear braided beards and wield battle-axes. Real dwarves don't do that, they get hired by Lucasfilm or take corporate office jobs because they're an equal-opportunity bonanza. Are we all but children, playing eternally on the same swingset while JRR is the grumpy dad watching from the park bench and trying not to get aroused?"''
|[[Ben Croshaw|Yahtzee]] [[Zero Punctuation|in his review of]] ''[[Dragon Age Origins]]''.}}
The generic [[Fantasy]] setting. [[High Fantasy]], [[Heroic Fantasy]], and [[Low Fantasy]] are usually set here, along with many Tabletop RPGs and [[Video Game]]s; however, this is not required. This is [[Newer Than They Think]]. [[Trope Maker]] ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', though written earlier, only developed a cult following in the 1960s. ''[[Dungeons
''[[The Tough Guide to Fantasyland]]'' by [[Diana Wynne Jones]] will tell you pretty much everything you would like to know about the place (minus a few [[Dead Horse Trope|dead horses]] and [[Dead Unicorn Trope|unicorns]]). See also [[Airport Novel]]. For the antithesis of '''Standard Fantasy Setting'''-style fantasy see [[Urban Fantasy]], [[Magical Realism]] and [[Mundane Fantastic]].
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* [[Everything's Better with Princesses]]: Either a [[Rebellious Princess]] or a [[Princess Classic]] will do.
* [[Our Dragons Are Different|Dragons]]: Dragons are, after all, central to both the [[Trope Maker]] ([[The Hobbit]]) and the [[Trope Codifier]] (Dungeons and '''Dragons''')
* [[Left
All of the above are inherited, to one extent or another, from [[Follow the Leader|Following The Leadership]] of ''[[Dungeons
{{examples|Examples of settings conforming to this standard include:}}▼
{{examples}}
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲=== [[Literature]] ===
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', the [[Trope Maker]].
** ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' and other works set in [[History Of Middle Earth|Middle Earth]]
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* ''[[Second Apocalypse]]'' fits but is still different enough to not feel very standard.
=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* ''[[Dungeons
** The ''[[Dragonlance]]'' series.
** R. A. Salvatore's [[Forgotten Realms|Drizzt novels]].
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* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Fantasy''
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* ''[[Majesty]]''
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' (Note that the Dwarves are not compliant with [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|ANSI standard Dwarves]], but this deviation is allowed by this standard.)
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* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' adheres to most of the above-mentioned tropes, but gleefully takes a [[Deconstructor Fleet]] to them.
=== [[Web Comics]] ===
* ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'', a webcomic that, like ''[[Discworld]]'', both parodies and deconstructs its setting.
=== [[Collectible Card Games]] ===▼
▲== [[Collectible Card Games]] ==
* A few of the ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' settings, especially Rath, Mirrodin, and Ravnica. (Some ''are'' compliant, though.)
** However, the earliest core sets had a setting best described as this. (That plane, Dominaria, gradually changed over time and is now amid an [[After the End]] phase following the conclusion of the ''Time Spiral'' block.)
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
* ''[[Fables]]''—The Homelands are a patchwork of technologies, cultures, and magics of all types, with literally every imaginable fantasy or mythical creature or race.
=== [[Fan Works]] ===
* ''[[With Strings Attached]]'' is an almost 100% noncompliant fantasy setting, to the point where the only trope that really applies is [[Medieval Stasis]], and that only in one of the two cultures on C'hou; the other is a thriving quasi-Victorian land with guns, factories, etc. Also, there are elves, but [[Word of God]] says they're just a pointy-eared race of humans.
=== [[Literature]] ===
* Most fantasy written prior to the late 1970s.
** Virtually ''all'' fantasy prior to ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', including, of course, 19th century fantasy.
* Most stuff set in our day and age (even if most of the action takes place elsewhere).
** ''[[The Dark Tower]]''
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* ''[[Gormenghast]]'' is set in a sprawling city castle complex yet the timeless, routine, indolent nature in which the castle is maintained means it could be in any time period from High Medieval to Victorian. [[Low Fantasy|There is no apparent magic or magical races]], yet once you get beyond the Earldom of Gormenghast, the world is fairly modern (or steampunk), complete with sky scrapers.
=== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s ===
== [[MMORPG]]s ==▼
* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' complies unless [[Rule of Funny|it would be funnier or punnier otherwise.]]
=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* ''[[Shadowrun]]''.
* [[Talislanta]].
* The ''[[Dungeons
* [[Empire of the Petal Throne|Tékumel]].
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'', and ''[[Final Fantasy X]]''.
** Also ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]''; the setting is 100% sci-fi except for the magic using [[Jerkass Gods]] the characters are being controlled by. Their idea of "medieval times" is basically the 20th century, except everybody is some kind of [[Warrior Poet]] living in hippie communes.
* ''[[Fable]]''—The first game is largely compliant, although it lacks most of the usual [[Five Races]]; it has mundane humans and High Men, but that's it for the "civilized" types. The second and third games deviate further from the formula by progressing through a renaissance and all the way to an industrial revolution, introducing firearms, factories, etc.
=== Examples of settings that are ''almost'' compliant with the standard include ===▼
* ''[http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/narth2k.shtml Narth 2000]'', a ''[[GURPS]]'' setting created for an online campaign run the during the late 1990s and early 2000s. It shows what a ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' world might look like 400 to 500 years later along its timeline than one normally sees them, with [[Steampunk]] [[Magitek]], 19th-century firearms technology, high magic, active gods, a magical counterpart to [[Cyberspace]] -- and humans who are the ''least'' advanced of the various races, technologically.
▲== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[The Death Gate Cycle]]'' started out as a post-apocalyptic flavor of this standard, but then [[After the End|the world ended]] ''again''. The current setting is in some ways very close to the standard and wildly divergent in others. See the article for details.
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' nominally has all of the stock elements (assuming the (unseen) children of the forest and (barely seen) Others qualify as examples of the Fairy and Eldritch [[Five Races]]) except [[Functional Magic]]. But most of these elements are used only so that they can be brutally [[Deconstructed Trope|deconstructed]].
* The ''[[Garrett P.I.]]'' series goes out of its way to subvert or deconstruct elements of this trope, both by giving them a [[Film Noir|noir]] spin and by pumping up the snark quotient.
* The setting of ''[[Sword of Shadows]]'' resembles the standard, but is set in [[Grim Up North|the subarctic regions of its world]], is missing nonhuman races except for the Sull (a [[Proud Warrior Race]] of elf-equivalents) and [[The Undead|the Unmade]], and the focus is more heavily on the "barbarian" Clansmen than the "civilized" part of the world.
=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* ''[[Eberron]]'' is similar, in that it is the logical conclusion of a High Fantasy standard: magic is an industry and the setting's atmosphere is similar to Inter-World War Europe. All races diverge, slightly to significantly from standard, and industrial magic yields a Steampunk tone without actually using any significant steam or clockwork.
** Actually, that would be 'Low Fantasy' (magic is a toolkit, society changes and grows), instead of 'High Fantasy' ([[A Wizard Did It|magic is wondrous and can't be replicated]], society is stuck in stasis).
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* ''[[Arcanum]]'' ([[Steampunk]] level technology; otherwise compliant)
* ''[[Warcraft]]''—Removes the [[Medieval Stasis]], and integrates modern, [[Steampunk]], and sci-fi technology with pre-modern armor and architecture. Both [[Expansion Pack|expansions]] thus far to [[World of Warcraft]] have introduced a lot of [[Magitech]].
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* ''[[Rift]]'' is superficially similar to ''Warcraft'', but cranks up the [[Magitek]] and does more [[Zig Zagged Trope|playing around]] with [[Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes|race tropes]].
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* ''[[Tales of MU]]'' is set in a formerly compliant setting, but with the [[Medieval Stasis]] removed. The current time period is sort of like the modern age, in the same way that the Standard Fantasy Setting is kind of like the middle ages.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. While we've got [[The Empire]] and [[The Kingdom]] along with rebel fighters, [[Magic A Is Magic A]] and a variety of other fantasy world tropes, its subverted in several ways. Most prominently, instead of being in a European central world the Avatarverse in a fantasy counterpart to Asia (China and Japan, mostly) with Inuit culture thrown in. There are no dwarves, elves or other similar intelligent races on par with humans, and [[Medieval Stasis]] is completely subverted, with technology developing into full out [[Steampunk]] in the sequel series.
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[[Category:Settings]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction]]
[[Category:
[[Category:This Index Has Standards]]
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