My health potions are green and poisons are red
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I feel like any decent adventurer would develop a system. I hear blind people will fold their paper money a certain way so they can differentiate between the different values…
Most countries have varying sizes and tactile features to distinguish denominations.
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A clearer way to phrase it might be “there are no rules for the genre of fantasy”. An individual world needs self-contained rules, yes, but just because Tolkien’s Dwarves have beards regardless of gender doesn’t mean that your Dwarves need to be the same.
Exactly. You demonstrate to me that a goblin is a house sized red avian, I won’t love that thats the word you used unless you give me a reason, but once thats done you better not use that word to describe a little green hominid.
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That’s a roguelike convention. Potion colors are randomized. Runes/scrolls usually arent.
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To write good Fantasy (of SciFi), you have to go through a process called “World Building”
I think this is more implying that you don’t have to work from the same framework for every fantasy world. Not everything has to be set in Arthurian Medieval Times with Crusader-Era social sensibilities. The menagerie of mythical creatures isn’t a prerequisite or delimiter (dragons / unicorns / etc are not a requirement nor are robots / cthulhoid horrors / woolly mammoths disallowed). You need internal consistency (to a degree) but you aren’t forced to adhere / omit any genre trope.
I would say, at an absolute bare minimum, you need some kind of fantastical or supernatural element to make it “Fantasy” as opposed to “Historical Fiction” or “Science Fiction” or some other category of fictional prose. Although, the genre of “Magical Realism” does make even that distinction a bit fuzzy.
many literature teachers / professors don’t even know about the idea of World Building
You don’t necessary need to go through the whole work of World Building if you’re just banging out a short story or novella. Even serial writers don’t necessarily bother going deep on the background material until they feel the need to expand the scope of the setting. I mean, look at the Star Wars setting. George Lucas didn’t have Jabba the Hutt defined as a big slug monster until the third movie. In the original film, there was a cut scene in which Han confronts Jabba, who was just a be-feathered chubby gangster.
If you’re just spitballing or cranking out bits of fiction in brief, World Building can be superfluous. A story that takes place entirely in a single house over the course of a long weekend doesn’t need the kind of scaffolding that a Long Walk to Mordor requires.
George Lucas is the perfect example what happens when you don’t do world building. The Star Wars universe is basically just retcons stacked onto other retcons.
And I am a firm believer that even short stories in a fantasy or SciFi setting don’t work without at least a certain amount of world building.
The number of fantasy and SciFi stories where the author thought they could get away without thinking their world through and which ended up badly is amazingly high.
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Why do you imagine that the,post is about reading?
It’s about story which is most often delivered through prose or dialogue. Both of which you either need to read or have read to you. When writing happens, reading usually follows.
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“There are no ‘rules’ for fantasy”
Wrong. To write good Fantasy (of SciFi), you have to go through a process called “World Building” where you lay down the rules of your world. Properly done, the amount of World Building exceeds the actual works by far. It is absolutely necessary to create a core of inner logic to the story. You are not bound by the rules of our world, yes, but you are bound by the rule of consistency. If you violate those, you automatically write crap Fantasy (or SciFi).
Funny, though, that e.g. many literature teachers / professors don’t even know about the idea of World Building.
Crap fantasy is still fantasy. Had a great time coming up with bad fantasy stories in my childhood when I knew nothing about good writing. Art is what you make it.
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Crap fantasy is still fantasy. Had a great time coming up with bad fantasy stories in my childhood when I knew nothing about good writing. Art is what you make it.
Life is too short to read crappy books. Like those we had to endure in school.
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George Lucas is the perfect example what happens when you don’t do world building. The Star Wars universe is basically just retcons stacked onto other retcons.
And I am a firm believer that even short stories in a fantasy or SciFi setting don’t work without at least a certain amount of world building.
The number of fantasy and SciFi stories where the author thought they could get away without thinking their world through and which ended up badly is amazingly high.
George Lucas is the perfect example what happens when you don’t do world building.
If you get into those coffee table books about the making of the first three movies, you find lots of world building.
All the bounty hunters on the deck of Vader’s Super Star Destroyer in Empire Strikes Back have canonical backstories, for instance. The cosmology of the galaxy - with Corusant at the center of the Empire and Tantoine way out in “Hutt Space” - was laid out by Lucas far in advance. “The Clone Wars” wasn’t just an off-handed reference, it was a thing Lucas had defined as the WW2 precursor to New Hope’s Vietnam. Hell, the fact that the first movie released was “Episode IV” should say it all.
One reason you got so many derivative works following Return of the Jedi is that Lucas dumped his director’s notes to the public as merch when production initially stalled on the Prequels.
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George Lucas is the perfect example what happens when you don’t do world building.
If you get into those coffee table books about the making of the first three movies, you find lots of world building.
All the bounty hunters on the deck of Vader’s Super Star Destroyer in Empire Strikes Back have canonical backstories, for instance. The cosmology of the galaxy - with Corusant at the center of the Empire and Tantoine way out in “Hutt Space” - was laid out by Lucas far in advance. “The Clone Wars” wasn’t just an off-handed reference, it was a thing Lucas had defined as the WW2 precursor to New Hope’s Vietnam. Hell, the fact that the first movie released was “Episode IV” should say it all.
One reason you got so many derivative works following Return of the Jedi is that Lucas dumped his director’s notes to the public as merch when production initially stalled on the Prequels.
If you get into those coffee table books about the making of the first three movies, you find lots of world building.
You are well aware that those are retcon? None of this existed before “A New Hope”. Most of it was done later by specialists hired by LucasFilm.
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If you get into those coffee table books about the making of the first three movies, you find lots of world building.
You are well aware that those are retcon? None of this existed before “A New Hope”. Most of it was done later by specialists hired by LucasFilm.
You are well aware that those are retcon? None of this existed before “A New Hope”.
Lucas had reems of material he used to turn out multiple screenplays before he ended on New Hope.
That’s a big part of where those changes in the re-releases came from.
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Nah this one is easy.
If it’s green and sparkly, it’s a good thing. If it’s green and bubbly, it’s a bad thing.
Given what Mountain Dew has done to me, that tracks.
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“There are no ‘rules’ for fantasy”
Wrong. To write good Fantasy (of SciFi), you have to go through a process called “World Building” where you lay down the rules of your world. Properly done, the amount of World Building exceeds the actual works by far. It is absolutely necessary to create a core of inner logic to the story. You are not bound by the rules of our world, yes, but you are bound by the rule of consistency. If you violate those, you automatically write crap Fantasy (or SciFi).
Funny, though, that e.g. many literature teachers / professors don’t even know about the idea of World Building.
That’s hard fantasy. Soft fantasy can be good too.
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That’s hard fantasy. Soft fantasy can be good too.
Can, yes, but in my experience rarely is.
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I used yellow for health to avoid red/green colourblind issues
I’m not sure if that’s a joke? If you have red/green colorblindness, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish yellow either. You’d just see blue and not blue.
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I’m not sure if that’s a joke? If you have red/green colorblindness, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish yellow either. You’d just see blue and not blue.
Coloring for Colorblindness
This interactive visual tool lets you see how accessible your color palettes are to viewers who are colorblind.
(davidmathlogic.com)
You can use this to come up with a palette, mine was safe
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Coloring for Colorblindness
This interactive visual tool lets you see how accessible your color palettes are to viewers who are colorblind.
(davidmathlogic.com)
You can use this to come up with a palette, mine was safe
But you could have just used a shade of red that looks the same. It would be just as safe, and have red health potions.
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I love the possibility of having a red/green colorblind character and having to roll to hopefully pick the right potion when they both health potion and poison in their bag.
But poison is purple. It’s acid they’d get it mixed up with.
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It’s a potion that cures hunger.
potions of stamina are just energy drinks
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Reminds me of the blue stop signs
