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