'I keep it as it is beside maybe flesh out some of the Nilfgaardian provinces. For a typical Witcher story, i dont need to know how this worlds fake Japan looks like, nor the finer details of Serrikania.';

'>>92581801
>How could you improve on The Witcher's setting and story?
As far as relevance to tabletop games goes, nothing. I'm not particularly interested in The Witcher, and settings and stories are respectively secondary and tertiary to gameplay anyway.';

'>>92581801
Just undo everything CDPR did to the canon. They make good games but are awful at lore.';

'>>92581801
the witcher isn't really a setting in the classical sense, it's just a hodgepodge of details made up for every story (and often thereafter ignored). It's an extremely barebones setting with very little lore. I would say the actual setting doesn't have a low of potential, but there's some stuff to steal from. If it feels bland and unoriginal, that's because it isn't anything more than the bare minimum required to serve the movement of plot from point a to b.

The map is also pretty weird (less obvious in that one) since it's just a weird rehash of the west usa/california ccoastline.';

'>>92581963
Have you opened the glossary? It’s paragraphs of background and lore.';

'>>92581801
You could start by treating it as an actual world instead of a hapzardly thrown together background for some fat Pole's (admitedly decent) short stories until he got way in over his hack head trying writing le epic saga.';

'>>92581801
Change all the established characters to unassuming people of color with personalities that diverge from the original source material. Then make the Nilfgaardian army more intimidating by giving them all ball-sack armor..';

'>>92581801
You can start with using the actual map, rather that whatever shitfest you've posted

>Feels like a world where fantasy species live as second class citizens to or are outright oppressed by humans (and it's implied that this is a cycle with every new major species arriving from the Conjunction of Spheres) has a lot of potential for unique worldbuilding and a wealthy variety of stories but what we actually got was kind of bland and unoriginal.
No it doesn't, and you aren't even a human, Bot-kun. Besides, we tried that shit already in the tail end of the 90s and guess what - the most boring and mind-numbing piece of shit came out of it. It even has a name. That's what Jesienna is.';

'>>92581963
>Pondsmith and Pondsmith draw a map
>They draw what they know
Zero surprises

>>92582554
... have you actually bothered to READ them, rather than glean the page count and get terrified of it?';

'>>92583129
>until he got way in over his hack head trying writing le epic saga
... but he set that one up in Bohemia and Silesia, thou';

'>>92581801
>adjust the author's blood alcohol level
>hook him up to a machine that gives him electric shocks every time he shoves blatant postmodernism in
Done.';

'>>92583129
At least he fished his saga, unlike the fat american hack.
Where's the book George?';

'>>92586923
>>hook him up to a machine that gives him electric shocks every time he shoves blatant postmodernism in
Yeah, nothing like removing the very reason why the rants of a drunken Pollack are worth reading in the first place. This is going to work out swell!';

'isn't meant to poke fun at schlock Polish right-wing nationalist writers who had the tendency to glorfy some kind of mystical fantasy Poland while using zero slavic mythology but copying stuff from Tolkien and D&D fantasy?';

'>>92588105
Not really. What it is poking fun of (in the brought-up context) is the Polish "hurra patriotism", the sort of "charge with bare hands a machine gun, they aren't gonna kill us all, FREEDOM!", and then predictably everyone gets gunned down, while the top brass talks about brave heroes.
He did however write a separate essay, titled "Piróg albo Nie ma złota w Szarych Górach" ("Piróg, or There Is No Gold in the Grey Mountains"), which is exactly what you brought-up: a mockery of the mid-90s Polish fantasy scene that decided that if they call vampire "wąpierz", then it's Slavic fantasy now, and if their character is a right-wing pundit self-insert, then it's the best kind of protag imaginable.';

'>>92588105
There are right-wing Polish nationalist writers? That sounds awesome.';

'>>92595237
Not particularly.';

'>um ackshully vampires aren't undead hellspawn that is unscientific, they are aliens from another dimension and hemoglobin has the same physiological effect on them that alcohol does to us

Are the books this stupid too or is it just the vidya?';

'>>92596782

It's planned aversion of medieval fantasy. The architecture, fashions, and technology in general suggests a Late Medieval-like setting, but characters talk about concepts like racism, drug addiction and genetics. Sapkowski on numerous occasions commented that he tried to include things like existence of monsters and magic into the mindset of the characters, along with using hefty dose of satire and post-modernism. In his vision, wizards (who actually know how the world operates on a very low level) are more scientists than sages or flamboyant combat specialists. In fact, responding to numerous accusations that his stories are not "period-accurate", Sapkowski has pointed out that fantasy takes place in an entirely fictional world, with a history, geography, culture etc. unlike our own. Nothing, not even individual words of a language can "realistically" be the same, as fantasy is not necessarily a recreation of anything "real" by the very definition. Sapkowski has used the Polish word for "king" as an example, the word being originally derived from Charlemagne's name, and thus impossible to exist in a fantasy world where Charlemagne never lived. Yet no-one seems to complain that fantasy works use the word "king". While fantasy is often inspired by Middle Ages, Sapkowski reasons that there's no "requirement" for it to follow any real-world logic. It can be as close or as distant from the real world as desired, and there's nothing "unrealistic" about, say, a peasant girl wearing underwear in the modern sense.';

'>>92597631

It also avoids medieval stasis. Various bits and pieces from the background setting suggest it's going through a whole lot of changes, both over past few centuries and just a few decades, with introduction of such things like bureaucracy (and feudal rule was also something that first had to develop in-universe, rather than being a starting point), universities, new styles in architecture or minor things like the ever-changing fashion. There is even a mental note made by one of Nilfgaardian officers regarding siege engines that are now reliable and cheap enough to not require dragging along a Military Mage to level-down a besieged castle.

Zoltan has a discussion with Geralt regarding swordmaking. As it turns out, Dwarven metallurgy and swordmaking techniques have changed considerably even over the last 50 years, and old Dwarf-made swords that humans consider state-of-the-art are in fact obsolete at this point. And their discussion suggests this is an ongoing process, so it's neither anything unique in recent developments nor does Zoltan consider it in any way a finished process.

A much larger example is the Empire of Nilfgaard, which has pioneered industrialization and mass-production via its manufactories. When they eventually stop their military campaign against the Northern Kingdoms, it is not because they think they can't win, but because it would be more profitable to conquer the North by trade, flooding the kingdoms with cheap Nilgaardian goods that Northern artisans cannot compete with.';

'>>92597631
Based';

'>>92586923
>postmodernism
That word, you keep using it but I don't think it means what you think it means';

'>>92596782
>The series best known for its deconstructionist approach to pretty much everything is le bad, because zoomershits think "deconstruction" means Disney-tier "subverting the expectations"
Were you always this stupid, or is it just an online pose?';

'>>92598057
He used it once and it looks perfectly valid.';

'>>92595237
The Witcher author is pretty left-wing. Or at least inso much he criticizes far-right nationalism, given the good guys are always a diverse band of outcasts- Witchers themselves are treated as second-class citizens, genetic mutants and freaks to be shunned despite their incredibly useful skills and role in society. He also pillories Geralt for thinking he's an enlightened centrist who is above the petty squabbles of the settings main factions because him refusing to take a side often ends up as being the worst possible action.

That said- the bad guys the Nilfgaardians are portrayed as a mix of the Nazis and Soviets, but they lean more Soviet given the Nilfgaardians actually treat the elves pretty decent and thus the elves often side with Nilfgaard, and then as a result elves get double-persecuted for not being 'loyal' to the northern kingdoms oppressing them. The whole thing is framed as these are the stories of the Northern Kingdoms that persisted and became culturally influential despite that they inevitably fell to Nilfgaard and a new chapter of history began thereafter.';

'>>92598317
I don't think he was implying it was bad beyond using an old meme.';

'>>92598317
>The series best known for its deconstructionist approach to pretty much everything is le bad
Yes.jpg';

'>>92597670
>It also avoids medieval stasis.
Absolutely all of the books and witcher media take place during a medieval period, including the flashbacks hundreds/thousands of years ago. All of the things you mentioned as 'breaking' this stasis are things that occurred even during the early medieval period.';

'>>92595237
A lot of Polish fantasy writers are conservatives. Most of them are pretty lame. The most famous one is proverbial for never doing any research in his political writings.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafa%C5%82_A._Ziemkiewicz';

'>>92602588
I wonder what the breakdown of ideologies and genres are across different nations.

I know here in the US we had a lot of Sci-Fi used as a venue for conservatism. Heinlein is probably the most famous example, most of it is stuff like 'cowboys on the moon don't need no stinking earth government, and make their own country that's mans man country'. I think the popularization of military sci-fi sort of carved out the right niche for conservative sci-fi (this isn't a critique but an observation, military themes are more conservative in nature and a sci-fi setting is both fun to explore and open ended to an authors desired plotline). Wheras I think more recently conservatives have moved to modern political thrillers that are much more just political wankery, rather than stories that have a conservative bent to them.';

'>>92602801
In Poland the early wave of right wing thought in scifi and fantasy probably stems from the fact that escapism and speculative stuff tended to overlap with anti-communism back in the 1980s. It's very trite, but when people wanted to criticize communism they'd just write a book about how there's an ineffective, stagnant authoritarian government on Mars the Red Planet, etc. So the two naturally went hand in hand. They were usually free market right wingers too, not many of them were more radical nationalists.

Then you had people like Sapkowski who was a contrarian contrarians, and wanted to distinguish himself from the rest by his progressive liberal rhetorics while still remaining an economical liberal.

I haven't done any research myself, it's just my hunch.';

'>>92603039
It seems to me it's also in part a reaction to the rise of Polands reactionary right. And his themes in his books are pretty hard to argue against- that is the regressive ignorant society that the main characters have to navigate are what isolationism and nativism get you. Of course his message is subtle, which is how the Witcher series gets held up by far-right Poles as tentpoles of Polish culture.';

'>>92581801
>How could you improve Generic Grimderp Slop #2674097
By ignoring it and homebrewing a better setting.';

'>>92602396
>Absolutely all of the books and witcher media take place during a medieval period
False
> including the flashbacks hundreds/thousands of years ago
Only Netflix did this

Thanks for making it clear you have no fucking clue what you're talking about';

'>>92603039
Your hunch is only correct insofar that dodging censorship by having ayylmaos in your book was a great way to tell people the regime is bad.
Then there is the matter of early 90s, when the people that didn't even have to dodge censorship (since they've started writing after '89) were writing pure political crap poorly disguised as fantasy and sci-fi.
THEN there is a matter of general stigma regarding "fantastic genre", which is treated in Poland pretty badly regardless of its political associations AND the step further of "fantasy, the dumb sister of sci-fi" meme that all the salty faggots writing the most blatant propaganda and manifesto-tier shit were repeating like a mantra, because god forbid if people read something for entertainment and not being preached.
And in the end is Sapkowski, who couldn't care less about any of this and was just writing fantasy, because it was fun and because he just gained an easy access to publishing his works now that there was no censorship (since part of it was a strict rationing of writing paper and of publishing houses, meaning even if you were writing pure entertainment stuff it was still hard to publish it or even get paper for your notes)
Also: to be labelled as "progressive liberal rhetorics" among Polish fantastic writers, all you have to do is either merely suggesting that Church is fucked and/or do not wholeheartly support blind, revanchism-driven, flag-waving nationalism. Your actual politics are meaningless, for Polish right-wing writing is entirely in tone of ultra-Catholic ultra-conservative. Ironically, those people insist that they cultivate the traditions of interwar "ND", or National Democracy... which was anti-clerical and progressive, WHILE hyper-nationalistic.

It's weird like that';