Do you understand what "vanilla fantasy" means anymore?

[Steerpike]

Good point.  My retort is that after awhile worlds that do not innovate at all, that are literally Middle-Earth/Faerun/Greyhawk carbon copies, get really stale to me, personally.

[Nomadic]

Good point.  My retort is that after awhile worlds that do not innovate at all, that are literally Middle-Earth/Faerun/Greyhawk carbon copies, get really stale to me, personally.

Same here. Those sort of settings have been done to death to the point that I have trouble having fun while playing them.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Personally, I've never found a reason to have an attitude against any specific "kinds" of settings.  I don't find myself particularly drawn towards what we're describing as "vanilla" here, but I'm also not necessarily drawn to crazily esoteric settings either - I'm just drawn to settings that have a good story and a good reason for being.

[Llum]

To Steerpike, just because chocolate becomes more popular then vanilla doesn't make it vanilla (chocolate = Eberron, vanilla = Grayhawk)

I have nothing against a vanilla world (full of stock and pretty much only stock fantasy tropes, most derived from Tolkien or Warhammer and now Warcraft [I'm looking at you Green Orcs] since those are the largest influence on "popular fantasy culture")

Personally I'm more drawn to non-vanilla settings simply because I enjoy the exotic. I know my best friend is the exact opposite, he likes stuff as traditional and "plain bread" as possible.

[Elemental_Elf]

Ok, how are Greyhawk, Faerun and Middle-Earth related? Middle-Earth has less races and less nations. Pre-4E Faerun has the greatest diversity of races, gods, nations and cultures (read as real world proxys). Greyhawk is more of the middle child.

Middle-Earth was written long before the other two. Faerun was (initially) created with a different goal than Greyhawk (being more of  world and less of an adventurer's backdrop). The number of 'chefs in the kitchen' also varies, from 1 (Middle-Earth) to some (GH) to a ton (FR).

With so many differences, what really unites the 3 as being 'vanilla?'

[Nomadic]

Ok, how are Greyhawk, Faerun and Middle-Earth related? Middle-Earth has less races and less nations. Pre-4E Faerun has the greatest diversity of races, gods, nations and cultures (read as real world proxys). Greyhawk is more of the middle child.

Middle-Earth was written long before the other two. Faerun was (initially) created with a different goal than Greyhawk (being more of  world and less of an adventurer's backdrop). The number of 'chefs in the kitchen' also varies, from 1 (Middle-Earth) to some (GH) to a ton (FR).

With so many differences, what really unites the 3 as being 'vanilla?'

Not Greyhawk, Faerun and Middle-Earth. Greyhawk, Faerun and Middle-Earth copies. I don't mind playing in those settings, but when it seems that 90% of settings now days are along those same lines it gets boring. For me vanilla is the stuff that does the same old tropes over and over. It's why I tend to shy away from high fantasy, since it falls so easily into the same trap. That's not to say I won't play these games, I will play anything with a good story. However, it is rare that vanilla excites me enough to want to play it.

[Kindling]

To me a "vanilla" fantasy world is one that, as others in this thread have said, relies heavily on stock elements of the fantasy genre, and one that anyone with a decent knowledge of the fantasy genre would really be able to play in with very little difficulty without having any prior knowledge of that specific setting or being "briefed" on it by the GM.

As to the validity of these settings... for RPGs? I think perfectly valid, they can be a lot of fun to play in, and as for the "well why not just use Middle-Earth?" query, well, sometimes the games you want to run and the storylines for those games require a certain political balance of power (for example) which means you need a world very much like Middle-Earth, but not Middle-Earth...

However, as settings for books? Personally, I think that while imitation may be the highest form of flattery, it isn't the highest form of art. Sure, you are influenced by those that came before you, sure you can draw on their works for inspiration, even quite heavily in some cases, but do bring at least SOMETHING of your own to the table, okay?

But then again, that's just my taste...

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Well the first thing seems to be that the answer to my question is "Yes" all-around.  Though most people don't seem to have actually answered the original question directly.

As I see it vanilla fantasy would be fine so long as people didn't try to make complete settings out of it.  If the purpose of using it is to give everyone involved common assumptions to work with then it's very jarring to find specific details about something.  An outline is okay, but specifics about anything other than what concerns the immediate game foil my ability to do the necessary assuming.

[Bill Volk]

To me, vanilla settings are appeals to a common denominator. People use vanilla settings because people use vanilla settings. People only play in Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms because everybody else does and there's so much published material about them. Greyhawk started as a homebrew, back when Gary Gygax was still exploring D&D's potential and inventing things that would become cliches later, so maybe Greyhawk wasn't always considered vanilla. Forgotten Realms started as a setting for sword-and-sorcery fan fiction. Once again, it borrowed from generic fantasy tropes on purpose. After D&D was invented, it became another homebrew. Nowadays, people only use these settings because they're popular, and they're only popular because of the low standards of quality in the early history of D&D. It's a vicious cycle. But at least Greyhawk now seems to be fading into the obscurity it so richly deserves.

Note that there is no good way to summarize the premise of Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. The closest you can come is by connecting them to real people: saying things like "It's the one people use in the RPGA" or "it's the setting that has an ass-ton of novels and computer games set in it." In other words, "It's the one that everyone else uses."

I don't know enough about Dragonlance to be able to say whether it's vanilla, but I've heard nothing but jokes and insults about it, so it must not be great.

Literally using Middle-Earth as an RPG setting is so seldom done that I'm not sure if I'd count it as vanilla. People tend to know less about it than they think they know. It might be so vanilla that it cycles back again and becomes daring.

[Scholar]

I'm looking at you Green Orcs

you know that warcraft is one of the few settings where there is an actual story related reason why some orcs are green, right? ;)

The sad thing is that I enjoy playing in those worlds :(

why is that sad? it's nice to play some adventures where you don't have to read 20 pages of cliffnotes to just be able to get into character. ;)

Ok, how are Greyhawk, Faerun and Middle-Earth related?

the first two's races are based on the middle-earth's race portfolio (with one addition: "cute"), see  Five Races for a nice summary. :)

I don't know enough about Dragonlance to be able to say whether it's vanilla, but I've heard nothing but jokes and insults about it, so it must not be great.

depends on your tastes, i guess. i loved the old DL comics and novels. sure it's a bit cheesy to today's readers (hell do i sound old. i'm only 21!), but it's a good kind of cheese. like stilton, not like those american spray-can cheeses. all very heroic, with the good guys being really good and the evil guys really evil. :)
now get off my lawn, you bloody kids! *shakes stick*

[Llum]

Yes I know, Orcs were brown, got corrupted by Demons turned green. Later drank some Demon Blood and turned red....

This however doesn't change that now most people see Orcs as green people (Warcraft and Warhammer did this).

Dragonlance isn't really bad its just cliche. And involves lots of dragons... as mounts.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

'¦'¦'¦'¦'¦dystopian'¦'¦'¦'¦'¦'¦

Unfortunately this one characteristic seems to be the defining factor in whether or not a setting is noticed.  I had one guy who's setting I reviewed tell me that the only reason it was dark fantasy was because it had been decided that that was the best way to ensure it sold.

[khyron1144]

I have to admit, Terra started as The Known World with the serial numbers filed down (Magocracy of Arcanum vs. Magocracy of Glantri), so I think I am intimately familiar with vanilla fantasy. I don't think there's anything wrong with vanilla other than a steady diet of it becomes boring.

Having said that, I know my tastes have evolved since then, but sometimes you feel like playing D&D and the basic rules set for D&D is suited pretty much only for vanilla fantasy out of the box.

[Bill Volk]

Having said that, I know my tastes have evolved since then, but sometimes you feel like playing D&D and the basic rules set for D&D is suited pretty much only for vanilla fantasy out of the box.

Yeah, sometimes coming up with a detailed, high-concept setting just isn't worth it. It can be more fun sometimes to just make it up as you go. That way you're never bitching to your players that they don't "get" your setting.

[beejazz]

Vanilla rocks in play.
D&D included very non-standard things from very early if you look at the monster manual (catoblepas, for example). Some of the non-standard D&D elements drifted into the mainstream later.
Small changes of specific kinds can add flavor to a vanilla setting (slightly advancing the tech level, scaling back the "nonhuman" races, etc.)