Favourite time setting for an rpg

Could also be the result of a feedback loop though: Because most RPGs are and were in medieval fantasy, that's also the setting people have the best experiences with and therefore also the setting they expect to like most in the future.

Reminds me of the MMORPG and PVP topic. PvP was always a niche topic in MMORPGs for a small group. And because of that it was also handled like that: It was implemented either with hindsight or tacked on. And PvP based MMORPGs were rather lower budget productions. This leads to bad experience with PvP in MMORPGs and contributes to a negative feedback loop. Big money goes to PVE, which makes it more likely that people have better experience with PVE over PVP and therefore also prefering PVE in the future.

My favorite is traditional high fantasy. Dragons, elves, wizards, magic, treasure, quests, dungeons - all of that. Just love that stuff, endless possibilities.

My least favorite is steam punk settings. I just hate when they mix technology with fantasy. I like post-apocalyptic settings too, but don't mix the two genres together!

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Medieval-inspired low-fantasy for me.
Or, rather, "middle-fantasy". Where magic isn't *that* rare - but not as common like in high fantasy.

This. I don't like TES where you have a gazillion different races and whatnot, I'd rather prefer a setting like Gothic, or Game of Thrones.
I'm also hyped for Kingdom Come, which seems as straight up, pure medieval as it gets.

I am looking forward to this, but it is years away:
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37842

It's a relatively seldom-used setting in games as far as I know. It is about a generation-ship. In Mass Effect, one of the races was part of this, but we didn't interact with them much, other than one recruitable NPC - Talia or something ?

My absolute favorite is a steampunk setting where magic exists. It isn't done very often, but when it's done well it's beautiful.

High fantasy is one I enjoy, too. I've had a tough time getting used to Sci-Fi RPGs, though.

Originally Posted by Zloth
Doesn't really matter to me. I like it to change up a bit so whatever I didn't play in last.

Yepp. I like different settings. High fantasy, Sci-Fi, post-apocalyptic…. A combination of settings like the magical-technical world of Arcanum is also interesting, although I personally didn't like that game (but as I've said elsewhere, I admit it was a good game).

One thing I'd like to see more of is a setting like The Secret World, where all the legends are true in the modern world.

pibbur who currently enjoys Middle-Earth.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Could also be the result of a feedback loop though: Because most RPGs are and were in medieval fantasy, that's also the setting people have the best experiences with and therefore also the setting they expect to like most in the future.

Reminds me of the MMORPG and PVP topic. PvP was always a niche topic in MMORPGs for a small group. And because of that it was also handled like that: It was implemented either with hindsight or tacked on. And PvP based MMORPGs were rather lower budget productions. This leads to bad experience with PvP in MMORPGs and contributes to a negative feedback loop. Big money goes to PVE, which makes it more likely that people have better experience with PVE over PVP and therefore also prefering PVE in the future.

This is some solid reasoning. I mean, most of the best classic RPGs are set either in the fantasy worlds or some sci-fi/post apocalypse setting, so people just pick one of these.

Sci-fi, the weirder the better.

I'd say Space Fantasy (Star Wars), Steampunk (Arcanum) or Cyberpunk (Shadowrun) And maybe Weird Fantasy (Sigil, Numenera). Basically anything that isn't High fantasy (which I still enjoy) or realistic (which I do not like as a setting no matter the time period). Postapocalyptic can be great too.

In the end it's not so much about the setting as it is about the delivery of course, a great game can be great in any setting, a bad one won't be saved by a good setting.

World War 3 in the near Future, so about 10 to 50 Years. So that we have to find some new things like AIs, Cyborgs and Space Fights but still can empathize with the Protagonists and NPCs.

I prefer lunchtime.

Budda-boom bish


(sorry)

You must spend a lot of money on new keyboards!

Originally Posted by Kordanor
For TV shows, Jeremiah was capturing the falvor quite well:

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Wow, I did not know about this show! The video is very cheesy however. OTOH, Babylon 5 (same creator?) had a lot of cheese in it too.

I can see that most of the responses here favored medieval fantasy. I too am a fan of that setting, but I do have a concern about it:

After a while, medieval fantasy gets generic. It gets even more generic than all first-person shooters set in the Middle East.

To me at least, what's even more important than a driving story is unique changes from vanilla medieval fantasy. Like in Kingdoms of Amalur, there are no goblins, but instead there are little magical forest mask monsters. Little changes like that make a big difference.

[Edit: I was thinking about Boggarts, which are the funny unique enemies in Amalur. But I guess Amalur does have Brownies, which are pretty generic goblin creatures. I forgot about that.]



There are lots of good things to say about Dark Souls, but most relevant here is the setting's departure from vanilla medieval fantasy. There are swords and magic but there's no hero's hometown that gets destroyed, no big city to travel to, no wolves and goblins on the way there.

Originally Posted by Ragnaris
My absolute favorite is a steampunk setting where magic exists. It isn't done very often, but when it's done well it's beautiful.

High fantasy is one I enjoy, too. I've had a tough time getting used to Sci-Fi RPGs, though.

Pub Time: There's Battle Chasers Nightwar made just for you. Cool one if you don't require something too sophisticated or serious, and if Steampunk doesn't require steam at every corner but weird tech that looks old. Magic and robots, robots to repair, guns and magic. There's undoubtedly some JRPG influences, and I'm not used to like JRPG but this one works very well for me, notice that it is a bit rough on some edges.

I'm very much a fan of low/middle magic fantasy like Witcher or Gothic. I want magic to feel *special*. It should something which certainly exists in the world and can be seen by ordinary men occasionally, but understanding or heck learning to wield magic should be the rarest thing. I loved how big thing it was to be a mage in gothic or witcher series. They were both feared and respected. Dragon age orgins treated magic like that which I found extremly satisfying from the roleplaying point of view. Mage orgins story for instance was a blast to play through.

I also love a good science fiction setting which is why I'm really anxious to play the upcoming Cyberpunk rpg from Cd Projekt. There aren't many options for a rpg gamer. I can only think of Mass Effects, Deus ex series, system shocks and shadowruns. There are also few forgotten classics like Anachronox and Omikron nomad soul, but they haven't aged well. Lastly I should mention this tactical indie game called Invicible ink which was pretty fun to play.

SF isn't dominant in RPG but there's more than that:
- Buck Rogers
- Albion
- Chrono Trigger
- System Shock series
- Deus Ex Series
- Anachronox
- Freedom Force 1&2 (not RPG?)
- KOTOR 1&2
- Mass Effect series
- Infinite Space
- E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy
- Shadowrun trilogy
- Mars War logs
- The Technomancer
- No Man’s Sky
- Horizon Zero Dawn
- More

There's some hardly good, and for sure it's not a complete list. Post Apocalypse seems almost compete, there's a good number of them.

I'm a fan of the moderately low magic medieval inspired.

Originally Posted by Dasale
Pub Time: There's Battle Chasers Nightwar made just for you. Cool one if you don't require something too sophisticated or serious, and if Steampunk doesn't require steam at every corner but weird tech that looks old. Magic and robots, robots to repair, guns and magic. There's undoubtedly some JRPG influences, and I'm not used to like JRPG but this one works very well for me, notice that it is a bit rough on some edges.

Sounds interesting, and perhaps right up my alley. Steampunk + magic mixed with a little bit of sci-fi or fantasy almost always has my attention right away. the jRPG influences could be a good thing, if done well (although I'm probably in the minority here).

Another one I really enjoyed was Primordia. It was a weird mix of post-apocalyptic/steampunk/sci-fi, and I thought that game was something special. The art style is gorgeous (IMO), the writing is superb, and the characters are likable.

I'm pretty much open to anything that doesn't involve playing an evil character.