Why do a huge portion of WRPGs take place in a medieval fantasy setting?

[Midnight Crossroads]

A huge portion of Western mythology as we know evolved during the Middle Ages. No one talks about how the cuirassier fought a dragon. You have Arthurian legend and Grimm fairy tales. Then there's the huge shadow cast by Tolkien. Tolkien's universe is basically the Unreal Engine of the literary fantasy world. It has everything a person needs to easily come up with a high fantasy world. Simply, people in the Western world identify easily with these legends and the themes present in them.

 

[Jason Danger Keyes]

I just want a Viking game so bad. The closest I've had was Age of Mythology, which was one of the coolest games of my youth. There's a lengthy portion of the campaign in Norse mythology, but it's an RTS and doesn't really give a personal, hands-on Viking experience a solid RPG would.

 

[Fayathon]

Also, where the hell is the pi button for Captcha?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

First paragraph, first character, I'd have copypasta'd it but the forums are kinda anal about alt code characters, it makes me sad, being a smartass isn't near as much fun if I have to link something rather than just post it.

I meant on the keyboard, I know what it looks like and what it is.

Initially I tried to use the alt code to post it, but that didn't work, so there's that. The forums hate alternative characters, I wish they'd fix that.

 

[G-Force]

The Dungeons and Dragons response makes sense as that was THE tabletop RPG of the time but now there are tons of other titles out there that could really benefit from the WRPG route. Warhammer40K or the White Wolf Games to name a few. Many tabletops manage to add stats to gun combat so why can't it work in a video game format?

 

[Kahunaburger]

I don't mind they are all basically the same as long as they stop making all its stories dark as coal.
'I SWARE IM TIRED OF STUPID RACIST DRAMA AND SWEARING IN EVERY BLOODY SECOND WITCHER; DO SOMETHING ELSE PLOX?' is my true opinion.

This was another thing I noticed with WRPGs, it was how serious everything is. While there are moments of genuine comic relief for the most part everything is rather grim. There are a few JRPGs that carry themselves out goofy manner (such as the Mario series) or at least keep a rather upbeat cheery pace (P4). Outside of A Bard's Tale I'm can't think of another WRPG to do this.

The sad thing is that Witcher 2 is actually one of the more funny ones out there when it's not busy being grimdark. That and Borderlands are the only recent WRPGs I remember making me laugh. (New Vegas was nicely surreal and ironic, but it's more of a sad kind of irony than a funny kind of irony.) I think the problem is that for whatever reason most WRPG writers suck at humor. For every General Knoxx, there are 10 Claptraps, "swooping would be bad" lines, and Wild Wasteland encounters.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Why do WRPGs so frequently use a medieval fantasy setting? Because it sells.

That's pretty much it.

When it stops selling, they'll move on to a different setting. But until then, they'll be more than happy to keep selling us the same universe with slightly different controls and Elves of new and exciting shades of purple.

 

[newwiseman]

Would you prefer a Roman WRPG were your constantly asked for your papers and there is nothing to do but own a business/farm or join the army? Or a Dark Age WRPG were everyone is sick and dying of the plague and it doesn't matter how much money you have because all anyone wants is food?

The generic "middle-ages" setting allows for a relatively prosperous period of time with a lot of conflicts and wars.

 

[Lucane]

Fantasy Settings use Fantasy set pieces like Sci-Fi uses Sci-Fi.Medival times are heavy in myth and superstition so explaining how certain people can use magic while others can't while not freaking out about it naturally makes since with what you know people of the time believed same with Sci-Fi but replace that with super advanced tech,Aliens,nano tech and starships. If you try to make similar games in in other settings it'd just be considered mixing generations together

I mean isn't it a little off putting picturing a friendly alien living in a modern day sub urban house while his house guest is a class 3 necromancer.

 

[Hectix777]

There's a difference between Japanese RPGs and Western RPGs: JRPGs use a wide array of creativity, they blend sci fi with fantasy and it can usually stick. While WRPGs usually go out to set themselves as the Lord of the Rings of the gaming world(ironic since we already have such a game, several even!). The medieval setting of many novels, movies, and fiction is perfect because this is an era where most of our childhood fables were born: Merlin, King Arthur, Excalibur, it was the well of Fantasy we continue to draw from. Setting an RPG today with Western techniques can be... sketchy. If it's set in today, we are going to be using guns. Even if it's gotta do with demons, we'll use a gun. You could argue with,"But-but the demons can only be killed by magic metal!," and they can counter-argue with,"So the bullets and knives are made of the same thing." We use that era because it's good, when we want an RPG, a true RPG, we choose the one fulla magic, swords, and dragons.

But yeah, any later era of other than the medieval era, is going to feature some type of machinery or magic. Games like Fable and Guild Wars 2 are starting to break away from it a little bit, Guild Wars 2 is going to feature a lot more machinery and just as much magic while Fable is going to branch of to the next era of world-history(WWI, if you haven't been noticing, the Fable games have been going off eras of importance to the world). When people say RPG, they want fantasy, they want swords and magic, they don't want a spec of reality in there, because it's boring.

SO, to restate why we chose this era, allow me to give a brief comparison between the 2 types of RPG

-JRPG: Quirky, goof,y kid-friendly, goes out to entertain and maybe tell a story, and also tends to disobey rules set for a fantasy world.

-WRPG: Sets out to create an epic. Love, heroes, magic, legends, they're all there for telling a story and making the magic happen

I guess the main fear is guns.No matter how late the era will be, there is going to be a gun. If you set WRPGs in later eras you get Borderlands, Fallout, etc.(which isn't bad). It works with Jedi apparently enough... SO why use the medieval era, it's the birth place of fantasy and lore and choosing a later era will usually tend to involve guns, a la Alpha Protocol.

THE KEY THING TO REMEMBER HERE is time. Time is the key, it can make the mountains bow and dry up the greatest oceans, but we must stick to it. I'm not saying it's impossible though. If someone created an urban fantasy game, they could rip-off the fighting mechanics of the magi from Dragon Age II and it will stick.(Loved it)

(Though my hat is off to Atlus and the Persona series for both setting an RPG in the modern era while using close-range/primitive weapons. They pulled it off well.)

 

[Kahunaburger]

I don't mind they are all basically the same as long as they stop making all its stories dark as coal.
'I SWARE IM TIRED OF STUPID RACIST DRAMA AND SWEARING IN EVERY BLOODY SECOND WITCHER; DO SOMETHING ELSE PLOX?' is my true opinion.

This was another thing I noticed with WRPGs, it was how serious everything is. While there are moments of genuine comic relief for the most part everything is rather grim. There are a few JRPGs that carry themselves out goofy manner (such as the Mario series) or at least keep a rather upbeat cheery pace (P4). Outside of A Bard's Tale I'm can't think of another WRPG to do this.

The sad thing is that Witcher 2 is actually one of the more funny ones out there when it's not busy being grimdark. That and Borderlands are the only recent WRPGs I remember making me laugh. (New Vegas was nicely surreal and ironic, but it's more of a sad kind of irony than a funny kind of irony.) I think the problem is that for whatever reason most WRPG writers suck at humor. For every General Knoxx, there are 10 Claptraps, "swooping would be bad" lines, and Wild Wasteland encounters.

Borderlands is a rpg ?

Depends on if you think Diablo is an RPG. Ofc, if you don't, the RPG genre's even less funny haha.

 

[Luthir Fontaine]

Even if you're not a huge fan of JRPGS, you could at least give them kudos to their unique looking worlds and styles. Ok sure, even someone like me is going to feel a bit tired toward the whole "spiky haired kid with huge sword saves world" bit but at least. World Ends With You had a graffiti art style and mixed in pop music, dance and fashion with it's monster slaying. Meanwhile the Shin Megami series blended monster and religious lore in a modern setting where characters used swords, fists and shotguns to save the world. Hell you get insane variety with the Mario RPGs which ranged from going around the worlds of Mario to fighting INSIDE Bowser.

Yea but most JRPGS
1. Take place in a scifi/fantasy bullshit locations. "Ok lets have a sword...but put a gun in it" Now lets set it way up her o you want to go and check out this kool mountain in the back round well to bad
2. Look like an art class throw up on it
3. Have a whiny git who complains every 10 mins World ends with you is guilty as sin for this
4. Most party memebers are still in high school
5. Hair that looks like they suffered a intense energy shock
6. Stupid "defeating" an enemy
7. Force to basicly take your toon to one location and watch a cutscene bull shit i want to make a choice i want to do something else...Nope still goin to walk right into these stupid trap.
8. Music that drowns out everything else.
9. Armor for women is laughable at best. I want to see my females have armor not some bikini
10. Women come in two flavors A. The bad ass ice queen B. Helpless bibo who requires the men folk to come and save her dumb ass.
11. Taking turns to fight is dull to say the least.
12. Why o why must i be this loner who thinks hes a bad ass over and over again.
13. Random battles are a ban of mankind
14. Being tele to a pocket of space to do battle is god damn stupid
...List goes on and on

Thier is a reason JRPGs are a dying breed not saying some are not bad but dull as hell would discribe most of them

 

[Piorn]

The Asari from Mass Effect are basically Elves. Only blue and Lesbians...
...I mean they live very long and do "magic".
If they'd look exactly like humans with pointy ears(from Space), nobody would believe it today, and it might even feel downright silly.
It worked for Spock, though, but that was rather due to technical limitations on TV.

 

[G-Force]

Even if you're not a huge fan of JRPGS, you could at least give them kudos to their unique looking worlds and styles. Ok sure, even someone like me is going to feel a bit tired toward the whole "spiky haired kid with huge sword saves world" bit but at least. World Ends With You had a graffiti art style and mixed in pop music, dance and fashion with it's monster slaying. Meanwhile the Shin Megami series blended monster and religious lore in a modern setting where characters used swords, fists and shotguns to save the world. Hell you get insane variety with the Mario RPGs which ranged from going around the worlds of Mario to fighting INSIDE Bowser.

Yea but most JRPGS
1. Take place in a scifi/fantasy bullshit locations. "Ok lets have a sword...but put a gun in it" Now lets set it way up her o you want to go and check out this kool mountain in the back round well to bad
2. Look like an art class throw up on it
3. Have a whiny git who complains every 10 mins World ends with you is guilty as sin for this
4. Most party memebers are still in high school
5. Hair that looks like they suffered a intense energy shock
6. Stupid "defeating" an enemy
7. Force to basicly take your toon to one location and watch a cutscene bull shit i want to make a choice i want to do something else...Nope still goin to walk right into these stupid trap.
8. Music that drowns out everything else.
9. Armor for women is laughable at best. I want to see my females have armor not some bikini
10. Women come in two flavors A. The bad ass ice queen B. Helpless bibo who requires the men folk to come and save her dumb ass.
11. Taking turns to fight is dull to say the least.
12. Why o why must i be this loner who thinks hes a bad ass over and over again.
13. Random battles are a ban of mankind
14. Being tele to a pocket of space to do battle is god damn stupid
...List goes on and on

Thier is a reason JRPGs are a dying breed not saying some are not bad but dull as hell would discribe most of them

I'm sure that with some slight tweaking one person can make up a list that gives broad sweeping generalizations of the WRPG genre as well. Again this isn't an issue with the mechanics or the characters of JRPGs but more about the overwhelming majority of WRPGs that are set in medieval fantasy universes. Not to mention the overall grim overtone that many of them have. Where's the WRPG with a super unique art style? Where's the WRPG that's meant to be super silly and fun, where's the WRPG that blends ancient monster lore with modern day sensibilities? For the most part when you mention WRPGs you're going to be thinking of elves, castles, swords, orcs and giant green blobs of slime. Sure we have deviations but as a genre the WRPGs seem content with going down this route while you have other genres that have played with alternate settings.

 

[J-meMalone]

It IS getting rather stale in my opinion.

If not medieval/Tolkienesque, it's sci-fi with guns and stats that SOMEHOW boost the gun's power.

Why not mix it up?
Have the ELVES running around, being all superior and racist (as opposed to humans).
Why not set it in the modern day? Have people in enchanted Kevlar running using magic swords because they're bullet resistant.
Mages in jeans and a t-shirt rather than robes, maybe with a cane instead a staff.
It could have an emphasis on enchanting gear yourself as opposed to gear with preset stat boosts.

I actually quite like this idea now...