I may be talking out of my ass, and god knows I probably am, but it seems RPG games are severly unbalanced in favor of mideval settings as opposed to, well, all other settings. Don't get me wrong, in the words of Ridley Scott I love "swords and sandles" and I consider series like NWN, Elder Scrolls, Ultima, etc to be some of the best gaming ever, but why SO MANY knights and wizards and horses and castles!? For every great post modernist/post apolcalypse RPG like the timeless Fallout there are fifty RPGs set in the dark ages. Would it kill game designers to bring this ratio back down a little closer to even? I think my argument comes from actually playing Fallout and thinking how nice it was to for once not have to worry about slaying some fu&%ing dragon. I know there is a market for them; a lot of people love KOTOR if for no other reason than the shift from elves to droids. Further more look at Fallout. EVERYONE adores Fallout.

And one more thing: stop putting all the dungeon crawlers in dungeons! Okay so Zax wasn't that great but atleast it was different!

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. :)

No, the're not in favour of medieval settings, they're in favour of Tolkien settings. Seriously, almost all fantasy games are a copy of Tolkien's ... Well ... Earth.

And here I was thinking this was going to be about the female healer... And what do you expect? It's right in the middle.

Only western RPGs, at least JRPGs show us original settings like Monster Hunter and Tales of Symphonia and Paper Mario.

Because it is easier to make RPG within the genre conventions of brawns and magic? leading to a medieval setting easier to do so then for example a SciFi or modern age. Fantasy in itself, and its conventions, plays a big part also, off course.

They are done as this, as party it is the expectations that they should be like this, and it is therefore safer.

I want a space sim in a fantasy setting.

The MMORPG Allods sort of does that...

"IT'S MAGIC" may allows for more -and more lazy- gameplay devices, possibly required to stitch the holes, or solve balance issues, in a full cRPG construction...

X-Wing, etc.

I think it's just easier to design a combat/damage system around medieval weaponry than it is for any other time period. Expertise (or experience level if you wish), quality armor and good weapons gave you the best results in a battle.

Fallout games have a fanciful combat mechanics where your agility determines your hit chance. Right, as if you can dodge bullets. And a single hit is usually enough to put you out of action, no matter where it hits. Any armor you have will probably not do the job very well if you can clearly see the enemy. bullet-resistant wests are more useful at ranges where you can barely see the silhouette of the enemy, and even then a direct hit may incapacitate you.

Cyberpunk 2077 :)

You're right, JRPGs just keep copying themselves, so their most common setting is different from western most common setting, but it keeps being utterly unoriginal nevertheless.

Good one. Very good one.

It's kind of hard to come up with proper variety in combat for characters when someone pulls out a gun :p