Lord Revan wrote: ↑2022-02-22 04:40pm
Jub wrote: ↑2022-02-22 01:26pm
It's kind of tough to disentangle post-D&D fantasy from the game itself.
Indeed that's kind of the problem with thought experiments like this, the very fact the work in question (in this case Dungeons and Dragons) has itself influenced so much that you'd might end in situation where the work ends up influencing itself indirectly if we assume all other works remain the same, if we assume other works don't remain the same then it's within the realms of pure speculations
I think outside of direct influences and adaptations (
Critical Role,
Record of Lodoss War,
Goblin Slayer,
Overlord), the chain-of-influence from the original sources that inspired D&D to what inspired D&D is more like a passing of the touch with D&D as an intermediary. It can get kind of weird. Like,
Dragonquest is highly influential to a lot of fantasy in Japan, and it was influenced by games such as
Wizardry and
Ultima, which were influenced by D&D. So, how much creative DNA does something like
That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime get from D&D that's truly D&D?
It's hair-splittingly difficult try and sus out, that's for sure! But I think we can use that as a framework for saying that things would largely be the same, but the overt stuff would not be there. Alternatively, you could look at well-loved fantasy series with detailed world-building that have gotten a stronghold onto the nerd-spheres.
So, that's two ways to narrow things down.
But perhaps I've been looking at nonwestern fantasies for so long (
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed, "The Sixth World" series by Rebecca Roanhorse, The "Obsidian and Blood" trilogy by Aliette de Bodard,
Journey to the West, and
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao) that it's skewed my perspective. Along with reading fantasy that just predates or was contemporary to the first edition (
The Dragon & The George by Gordon R. Dickson) perhaps under-valuing D&D's influence in my own mind.
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