Frank the Wanderer skrev:
> There's been a few too many Dragonlance fans out there too ready to
> condemn all future developments of a given, disliked setting element
> for no other reason then the fan's dislike of the initial element (even
> though, in many cases and as one would expect, further development of
> that element significantly improved the quality and character of that
> original element).
Any examples?
(Probably being one of the fans you refer to here, I must say when it
comes to the 5A that the opposite happened to me: I initially liked the
concept, but the grew to dislike it.)
> Finally, most people don't "get" the concept of fantasy technology,
> because they allow their suspension of disbelief threshold to swing
> dispro****tionately low when the word "technology" is thrown out there
> (the word "fantasy" gets tossed right out of people's minds when the
> word "technology" is spoken, which is an unfortunate reflection of
> modern narrow-mindedness). It's astounding what people will not accept
> because of their preconcieved notions of "scientific fact", which is
> intimately interwoven in most people's minds with the word
> "technology". As I implied previously, this is a problem for
> Dragonlance, for some of the reasons that might be collected under your
> "DL feel" generalization. The simple fact of the matter is that there
> is no "feel" for technology in many fantasy settings, including (indeed
> especially) Dragonlance. And therein lies both the problem, and the
> challenge to be overcome. A very interesting one, at least for me
> personally.
Well, it obviously jas to do with genre conventions. I have seen
several mixes of fantasy and technology, but still the most enduring
concepts are more "pure". I'm not sure why (but you do offer some
reasonable explanations), but too often such concepts feel like
artificial gimmicks rather than worlds in which it is easy to suspend
disbelief. The only real successful "mix" I can think of is Star Wars,
which has some fantasy elements in an otherwise science fiction
setting, using features from both traditions in a new way making it a
truly compelling setting.
As for Dragonlance, I think technology is handled quite well there.
Gnomish ineptitude prohibits it from there being an industrial
revolution, which is the last thing I want. The gnomoi on Taladas are
handled well too, with more advanced and working technology, but it
fits the conditions around the lava sea and is geographically isolated.
(I wasn't all that enthusiastic about the gnomoi robots in one of the
modules, though.)
In the real world, when technology first started to get a bit advanced,
things moved very quickly. It's only been about 250 years since steam
engines, which means we went from agricultural society to current
"atom" or "computer age" in that short span of time, compared to the
roughly 10000 years agricultural society existed. With such an enormous
change and development in the age we live in, we too often expect
fantasy settings to develop as quickly and fundamentally as our world,
particularly if technology is introduced.
Morten
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