Friday 21 August 2015

Dismaland


On my more general blog I recently wrote about my experience of 'getting' D&D having some experience of the scale (and extremes) of American geography. Ed Dove offered a very interesting reply/addendum on G+, which is that to get D&D's take on fantasy you really also have to check out that other icon on American geography, this time entirely synthetic - Disneyland. I'd quote from it, but I'd end up reproducing Ed's comment more of less in its entirety, so I'll simply link to it here.


Suffice to say, I think he's got a point, but what does this have to do with Warhammer? Well, Ed's observation has been made at a particularly opportune time, as Banksy opens Dismaland in Weston-Super-Mare. And Dismaland is to Disneyland, what WFRP is to D&D*; a reflection of the classic tropes distorted by black humour and political cynicism.

[Photograph by Yui Mok/PA, via the Guardian. Not trying to steal the picture, just using it for illustration, please visit the Guardian article to ensure that the proper licensees get their due web-hits.]

*Not all D&D is 'Disneyland American Fantasy'. As the OSR proves, the basic D&D engine is incredibly versatile and capable of handling all manner of genres.

1 comment:

  1. and not that WFRP 1e is all Dismalland either, and infact sometimes it is exactly Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

    There's still a Brit-art OSR clone waiting to happen. Irony Rats, like politically charged Kobolds storming the sewers with their pithy catchphrases - or, as you have there Gitch Princesses, distorted phantom Naiads using VHS decay time loop conversations as level drain, with their seductive repeated messages drawing adventurers to their doom.

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