Roleplaying Games

Funny thing about roleplayers. Outside of White Wolf, with their emphasis on sociopolitical play (Vampire: the Requiem) and mental conflict (Mage: the Awakening), a lot of RPG stuff all comes out of some D&D chapbook; "Explore the ruins, kill all the monsters, loot the treasure, gain XP, rinse, blowdry, repeat."

Mongoose's Legend has too many holdovers from its predecessor RuneQuest for comfort. Again, the setting focuses on combat and battles, with the fora filled with BS about combat styles and the range of a sling compared to that of a longbow, and nobody paying attention to the origins of the fantasy genre in storytelling and deeds of derring-do from dashing heroes and feisty females, femmes fatales and dastardly conniving Grand Viziers plotting to rule as the power behind the throne.

I'd really hate to have players like the ones from Knights of the Dinner Table who, when brought before the King to accept a mission of great importance, promptly began asking the weak DM "How many XP do we get for killing a King?" followed by "I draw out my +12 Blah Blade of Blahness and attack the King."

I don't want players who only think about dungeon looting and killing monsters like some sort of dreadful video game. Take your slacker attitude and play with some other GM, one with far less experience of telling actual stories and forging legends.

Me, I want the players to have a chance at forging legends in some other way than through dungeon crawling and orc bashing.

How about a setting where the characters are itinerant entertainers, wandering from town to town following a season, doing acrobatics and juggling and seducing half the town at night? Or a setting where the characters' job is to use their healing potions and magics to patch people up after wars and battles, no matter what side they are on?

An original fantasy setting would also sit well with me. Everything seems based on a Greco-Roman or Dark Ages setting. Nobody wants to entertain a fantasy setting where society developed in another way, where no Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome came conquering, where civilisations rose and fell that bore little resemblance to the worlds of Pliny and Seneca and Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus?

But that is too hard for most fantasy RPG games masters to think about, isn't it?