Why is D&D still Medieval?

[Bugbear]

So, way back when, many years ago D&D was started as a fantasy game with the vague setting of Medieval Europe.

So through the '70's and '80's popular fantasy culture was dominated by Sword and Sorcery. The Tolkien books, of course. Also the works of Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock and Jack Vance. Movies were full of sword and sorcery, as so was TV with shows like He-Man. A fan of this time sees a group of D&D characters with a barbarian with a big weapon, and a wizard with only a few spells...mostly to cast at a set time.

Sci-Fi got it's first big boost with Star Trek:The Next Generation towards the end of the '80's. And RPGs like Traveler and West End D6 Star Wars have their die hard fans, but they never much caught on big.

Into the '90's Sci Fi was on the rise. More Star Trek and Babylon 5. Independence Day. And right near the end: The Matrix. You also get the big rise of anime, and many other cartoons. The high magic shows like Hercules and Xena and Highlander. And video games with somewhat decent graphics.

Fans here loved lots more 'special effects', and characters that were magic.

Yet, D&D stayed very clearly in the setting of Medieval. Even Spelljammer was just a ship that flies...and does Medieval stuff.

2000 and the years that follow bring more Matrix, more special effects and even some popular blends of things like sci fi western, like Firefly. Anime, cartoons and video games vastly increased special effects.

And yet, D&D was still stuck in Medieval. Characters in D&D settings hunt for food and huddle around a fire for warmth. Magic gets a lot more flashy, but the setting stays dull.

By 2008 D&D had taken the turn to flashy lots of special effects for characters. But the setting was still Medieval, with dirt and fire.

By 2014 D&D had toned it back down a lot, But the setting was still Medieval, with dirt and fire.

And the last couple years have brought lost more special effects on TV shows and movies and video games. Even more so the whole rise of Super Heroes. Avengers Endgame is overflowing with CGI Spam. Many fans of D&D want to play characters like the super heroes in Endgame: covered in energy and blasting away.

So, why is D&D so stuck in Medieval? Is it still THAT popular? Was it ever? It seems a lot more people like settings that are anything else, but D&D does not change.

Why have we never seen a more updated setting? I mean really updated closer to modern day. How many games even use the Medieval setting? Or do most use a much more modern one anyway?

So, why don't the makes of D&D update?

[Tanarii]

Sci fi was huge long before D&D was born.

Lookup Dan Dare and Flash Gordon.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Why have we never seen a more updated setting? I mean really updated closer to modern day. How many games even use the Medieval setting? Or do most use a much more modern one anyway?

So, why don't the makes of D&D update?

Why should they? More modern =/= better. In fact, I much prefer my fantasy without magitech or modern stuff. Because modern stuff implies way too much about the nature of the world and constrains things terribly.

[LordCdrMilitant]

D&D being largely medieval is why I don't actually count it among my favorite systems. I'm a sci-fi person, I'll take laser guns over swords and spaceships over medieval pseudoscience any day. My D&D campaigns have a tendency to quickly turn into sci-fi games in disguise anyway.

[Jason]

D&D is still medieval/borderline reconnaissance because that's what it was to start with, and it works. Don't mess too much with a winning formula, or you'll end up with 4th edition.

[OldTrees1]

Guns changed everything

Some of those ways negatively impact the ability to tell certain types of stories or do certain types of roleplaying. That is why D&D had to pick a default position (and create some optional content if it was worth the investment).

[Mechalich]

The core D&D gameplay experience is adventuring. This is the act of wandering through the wilderness, finding some location abandoned or semi-abandoned by civilization, slaughtering every living thing larger than a kitten it contains, and then hauling off every article of value you possibly can without breaking your back.

This core gameplay loop generally plays better in a pre-industrial context than in a modern or futuristic one. Even in a space fantasy, like Star Wars, the idea of plundering the corpses of your fallen enemies just doesn't quite fit, and in true science fiction it rapidly transitions into war crime status. It also tends to become pointless. The crew of the Starship Enterprise might find value in stealing MacGuffins and rare pieces of machinery, but the weapons and corpses of their enemies provide them with nothing they do not already possess.

Likewise the sort of blatant disregard for the value of foreign cultures to both exist and to have cultural artifacts worth studying rather than ripping apart for conversion into raw bullion also plays much better in the era of swords and horses. Grave-robbing transitioned into archaeology about the time of the industrial revolution.

This is one of the reasons why attempts to port the core gameplay of D&D into a futuristic context - like Spelljammer or Starfinder - tend to go very poorly (and yes, both of those settings have their fans, but neither can be considered anything like a success).

[P. G. Macer]

So, way back when, many years ago D&D was started as a fantasy game with the vague setting of Medieval Europe.

So through the '70's and '80's popular fantasy culture was dominated by Sword and Sorcery. The Tolkien books, of course. Also the works of Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock and Jack Vance. Movies were full of sword and sorcery, as so was TV with shows like He-Man. A fan of this time sees a group of D&D characters with a barbarian with a big weapon, and a wizard with only a few spells...mostly to cast at a set time.

Sci-Fi got it's first big boost with Star Trek:The Next Generation towards the end of the '80's. And RPGs like Traveler and West End D6 Star Wars have their die hard fans, but they never much caught on big.

Into the '90's Sci Fi was on the rise. More Star Trek and Babylon 5. Independence Day. And right near the end: The Matrix. You also get the big rise of anime, and many other cartoons. The high magic shows like Hercules and Xena and Highlander. And video games with somewhat decent graphics.

Fans here loved lots more 'special effects', and characters that were magic.

Yet, D&D stayed very clearly in the setting of Medieval. Even Spelljammer was just a ship that flies...and does Medieval stuff.

2000 and the years that follow bring more Matrix, more special effects and even some popular blends of things like sci fi western, like Firefly. Anime, cartoons and video games vastly increased special effects.

And yet, D&D was still stuck in Medieval. Characters in D&D settings hunt for food and huddle around a fire for warmth. Magic gets a lot more flashy, but the setting stays dull.

By 2008 D&D had taken the turn to flashy lots of special effects for characters. But the setting was still Medieval, with dirt and fire.

By 2014 D&D had toned it back down a lot, But the setting was still Medieval, with dirt and fire.

And the last couple years have brought lost more special effects on TV shows and movies and video games. Even more so the whole rise of Super Heroes. Avengers Endgame is overflowing with CGI Spam. Many fans of D&D want to play characters like the super heroes in Endgame: covered in energy and blasting away.

So, why is D&D so stuck in Medieval? Is it still THAT popular? Was it ever? It seems a lot more people like settings that are anything else, but D&D does not change.

Why have we never seen a more updated setting? I mean really updated closer to modern day. How many games even use the Medieval setting? Or do most use a much more modern one anyway?

So, why don't the makes of D&D update?

Because if D&D went majority sci-fi or superhero, it wouldn’t be D&D anymore. You’re assuming that just because D&D was born at a time when heroic and sword-and-sorcery fantasy was immensely popular that D&D is a trend-chaser. While there are some notable examples, from the monk class being inspired by Kung-Fu (1972) and most infamously 4e trying to imitate MMORPGs such as WoW (The devs finally admitted to it a year or two ago), for the most part it is not.

I don’t have explicit data for this, but I strongly suspect that most people who play D&D play in a pseudo-medieval/Renaissance setting. The fantasy aesthetic is part of the appeal of the game for many, especially those who are aware of other TTRPGs yet choose to still play D&D; if they want a superhero game, they’ll just play something like Mutants and Masterminds. If they want soft sci-fi, they’ll play something like Starfinder or one of the Star Wars RPGs. Keeping the game mostly grounded in heroic fantasy is a deliberate design choice, even when the settings deviate from pseudo-medieval to dungeon-punk (Eberron), post-apocalyptic sword-and-sorcery (Dark Sun), Gothic horror (Ravenloft) or wacky space fantasy (Spelljammer).

If WotC or Hasbro decided to remake D&D as sci-fi, superhero, or even modern on-Earth fantasy, I suspect they would alienate a huge portion of their customer base and make a lot less money. 5e is a resounding commercial success, and stirring up the pot too much could kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[Lacco]

Because it's Dungeons & Dragons. If you wanted to make a semi-modern version, it would be Basements and Tax Collectors. Or something like that. Sci-fi version? Planets & Starships.

That said: D&D is not medieval.

If you wanted to ask why many RPGs tend to be (almost predominantly) set in pseudo-medieval setting, that would be an interesting debate. Still, if you want different settings, try different RPGs.

D&D isn't the only one, neither the best one - and while many may oppose, many will state the same. It's just... the one with widest coverage, marketing and customer base.

Good luck trying out other games.

[Anonymouswizard]

Sci fi was huge long before D&D was born.

Lookup Dan Dare and Flash Gordon.

Also Doctor Who, Foundation, Quatermass, Star Trek, Leman, the Robot Trilogy, and I don't know, Starship Troopers. Science fiction had been popular enough for basically all of the 20th century.


That's also disregarding the fact that D&D changed. While individual settings might be relatively static both Eberron and Nentir Vale (from that edition liked to an MMORPG because of the use of explicit combat roles and practically nothing else) represent more modern takes on fantasy. Eberron is arguably one of the codifiers of Dungeon Punk, and features heavy influence from early twentieth century pulp. While Nentir Vale was a more explicitly post apocalyptic take.

I've seen people digest that Eberron was released before it's time, but honestly it was and is one of the most popular D&D settings. And if you want your sci fi influences even more, well those Houses look an awful lot like megacorporations...

[Satinavian]

So, why is D&D so stuck in Medieval? Is it still THAT popular? Was it ever? It seems a lot more people like settings that are anything else, but D&D does not change.

Medieval IS still very popular.

But Sword and Sorcery and early D&D were not particularly medieval. There is a lot of post-apocalyptic nonsense there as well as poorly understood ancient societies.

And D&D is utterly bad at "medieval". Hardly any of the books actually helps to flesh out a feudal society based on personal bond, privileges, titles and obligations. Instead adventurers are basically treated as the same social class whatever their background. The D&D world is full of untamed wilderness full of monsters where in medieval europe every bit of territory had its owner or might be constested by multiple ones. Power in D&D does not come from your ability to call in allies to field an army, it comes from individuals powerful enough to take on an army by themself.

I don't know anyone actually playing medieval fantasy and using D&D for it. There are so many other systems that do that way better.

[MoiMagnus]

(1) Peoples love swords. To the point that some of the most popular futuristic settings (Star Wars & Warhammer 40k) twist the logic of the world so that fighting in melee with powerful swords is actually a thing peoples do quite often, instead of just blasting each other at long distance.

(2) Peoples like small scale worlds. As soon as you reach industrial era, travel is becomes easily available. This increase the scale of the society, and makes it even more complex for the DM to world-build, makes it way more difficult for peoples to understand the stakes (is ten thousand death as collateral damage a lot or a cheap price to save many more?) and reduces the impact of single common individuals.

(3) With modern settings come modern social issues, which a lot of peoples want to avoid in their game.

(4) D&D is not "full medieval" either. Technologically, it's usually late medieval (plate armour), if not Renaissance (first firearms). Society-wise, it's all over the place.

[jayem]

Also it wants Magic.
Trying to graft that into a future society and you have the problem that the magic should be available in the present. It can of course be done, e.g. Star Wars, but it needs a different presentation, and then it's not D&D it's .
Trying to graft that into a modern society raises similar questions, we know how this world works. Again you can put it in a conspiracy (world of darkness, harry potter) or bring the 'magic' from outside (superheros).

In a quasi-medievel setting you can put the goalposts on wheels. You can play the "XXX hasn't been developed yet card if needed, you can throw in a Mages guild. Of course all Wizards do XYZ

[Yuki Akuma]

They made a version of D&D set in the modern period. It was called D20 Modern: Urban Arcana.

They made a version of D&D set during an industrial revolution. It's called Eberron.

They made a version of D&D based on space opera tropes. It was called Spelljammer.

[dancrilis]

I assume that D&D still has a medieval feel because that is what people want to play.

[Nifft]

So, why is D&D so stuck in Medieval? Is it still THAT popular? Was it ever? It seems a lot more people like settings that are anything else, but D&D does not change.

Why have we never seen a more updated setting? I mean really updated closer to modern day. How many games even use the Medieval setting? Or do most use a much more modern one anyway?

So, why don't the makes of D&D update?

D&D was never strictly medieval.

Ye Olde D&D was Classical monsters (manticores, sphinxes, etc.), frog-people in a swamp, and robots with ray-guns in a crashed starship-- which the PCs fight using Renaissance swords & armor.

None of that was specifically medieval.


Greyhawk had an order of knights who used handguns, IIRC revolvers. I think the explosive powder was a secret of their knightly order.


Planescape and Eberron were both popular enough that you should have heard of them, and neither of those was strictly medieval either.


What is "the setting" which you think is stuck in medieval stasis?

[Zwinmar]

Try the Alternity setting, it's Future Tech D&D. That said, there are a lot of misunderstanding about swords and few people around who have real world combat experience with them (I would say none, but never know so..) where as many, if not most, people have a basic understanding of guns. You can go down to your local Veterans Organization and find people with very real combat experience with them.

This does not include other things like planes, trains, and tanks, or rockets, bombs, and missiles. All would be mindboggling confusing to adequately portray in a pen and paper game like D&D. This means that D&D is, in a sense, 'simpler' to replicate an adventure in.

[Chronic]

It's still fantasy because fantasy sell way better than science fiction, that's a given in many entertainment industries. It's way harder to produce widely appealing SF than fantasy, ergo it's harder to makes money with it.

[Delta]

2000 and the years that follow bring more Matrix, more special effects and even some popular blends of things like sci fi western, like Firefly. Anime, cartoons and video games vastly increased special effects.

You know while you focus exclusively on SciFi stuff, there was something else that was released in the 2000s that might just have given "medieval-ish" fantasy the teeny teniest bit of a popularity boom...

[Mechalich]

It's still fantasy because fantasy sell way better than science fiction, that's a given in many entertainment industries. It's way harder to produce widely appealing SF than fantasy, ergo it's harder to makes money with it.

Right, and the OP is conflating two things that are not entirely related.

D&D is a fantasy game with a Medieval/Renaissance tech level. It also has some, but most assuredly not all and varying heavily by specific setting, of the cultural trappings of the European Medieval period.

Fantasy is by far a more popular genre than science fiction for tabletop roleplaying. The most successful challenger to D&D was also a fantasy game - the oWoD - it just had a modern setting and its cultural trappings were those of the extremely specific Goth subculture of the 1990s. The most popular 'futuristic' setting is Star Wars, which is also a fantasy game and draws on the cultural trappings of something like Western civilization circa 1870 - 1955 (the timeframe of the adventure serials Lucas drew upon for inspiration).

The number of actual science fiction tabletop games is quite small, dwarfed by space fantasy alone.

[Beleriphon]

Also it wants Magic.
Trying to graft that into a future society and you have the problem that the magic should be available in the present. It can of course be done, e.g. Star Wars, but it needs a different presentation, and then it's not D&D it's .
Trying to graft that into a modern society raises similar questions, we know how this world works. Again you can put it in a conspiracy (world of darkness, harry potter) or bring the 'magic' from outside (superheros).

D20 Modern did Modern Magic Right^TM. It assumed a D&Desque world that was leaking magic into the modern world, and most people's brains couldn't quite get it so they rationalized magic as normal stuff. Ogre playing hockey: a particularly large NHL enforcer.

[Luccan]

Firstly, Medieval Fantasy media didn't stop being released during that time and it never really stopped being popular. Until the last season GoT was one of the most beloved shows on the planet. That was only a few years ago. Second, early D&D had plenty of sci-fi, because the writers and players were interested in it, aided by the fact that at the time the genres were not considered separate. I would actually argue fantasy has gotten more popular since the early days and since the genres split, which is part of the reason 5e is so successful.

D&D has a few explicit settings that don't really do the faux-medievalism thing or even pay it lip service. Eberron and Spell Jammer, as have been mentioned, are fantasy, but not medieval. Dark Sun could only be considered medieval in the sense it's a pre-industrial, pre-gunpowder setting, but it's probably better described as Mad Max with elves and giant bugs. It's only in 5e that we've seen this long (edition-wise) complete focus on the medieval. And even then, Ravnica and Eberron books have been released in the past few years, which are industrial/early modern settings but with magic. If it's really just the medievalism that's the question, Theros is faux-bronze age Greece. Two of those might be MTG originally, but they're still settings you can play in modern D&D with official support.

[LibraryOgre]

I have long said that D&D isn't really medieval, it's a Western with medieval trappings.

Relevant excerpt from a post about it on my blog (full thing not linked since it's got some contentious political in it)

While people like to point to the swords and armor and knights and call D&D and its descendants "medieval", I see them as having a lot more in common with Westerns. The class of free wanderers, righting wrongs and wronging rights, be they adventurers or cowboys. The social mobility, where a simple warrior could become king (or a poor cowpoke could become a rich landowner). And the broad assertion that race (or nationality) is personality. The only ones with significant variation are "regular Americans" (humans, in D&D-likes), while everyone else broadly adheres to their stereotypes... the Englishman, the Swede, the Indian. "You're not playing an elf; you're just playing a human with pointy ears" is a common charge leveled against people who go against type, because only humans are supposed to be varied in personality.

This gets more severe when you look at "Indians", which D&D-likes tend to cast as humanoids. Tonto, in the Lone Ranger, was cast as the "one good Indian"... every other Indian in contemporary Westerns (the Classical Western) was a ravening savage, there to kill the Good White Folks out to Tame the West. But, as the genre continued, you saw more nuanced portrayals of Indians... Charles Bronson as the noble savage half-breed of the revisionist Western, Indian-friendly protagonists (q.v. Dances with Wolves), and even crept into more classical comedy westerns (q.v. McClintock, where the Indians are honored enemies of the title character).

In a lot of ways, these "revisionist Westerns" are what you are seeing now, and a lot of other people started seeing in 1983... drow, orcs, minotaurs, and the like as people within the fictional world, with their own reasons for doing things; reasons that make sense to them, within their culture. In short, they're being viewed as people, not just creatures up from the deep to destroy good and beauty, without reason. If they're evil, it's not solely because they "deriv[e] joy from violent acts", but because that's who their culture turns them in to. The gods they worship push them in that direction... and those gods are individuals, who might be good or evil (which somewhat differentiates them from modern religions which are more social phenomenon).

IME (as a librarian), this is partially because, maybe even a cause of, Westerns are a somewhat dying genre, mostly relegated to older (60+) white guys (leaving aside the romances set in the Wild West, which are still pretty strong, and mostly the domain of white women, he generalized). A lot of the Western audience has become the Fantasy audience, and there's a fair number of Westerns you could rewrite as fantasy pretty easily (such as I did with the serial "Slocum and the Snake Pit Slavers" in my Two Tales of Tellene; and the other story in there could easily be recast as a Western with a native American replacing the sil-karg, and a bear replacing the owlbeast.)... and this doesn't include mixtures of the genre, like Red Country or Brisco County, Jr.

[Willie the Duck]

So, way back when, many years ago D&D was started as a fantasy game with the vague setting of Medieval Europe.

So through the '70's and '80's popular fantasy culture was dominated by Sword and Sorcery. The Tolkien books, of course. Also the works of Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock and Jack Vance. Movies were full of sword and sorcery, as so was TV with shows like He-Man. A fan of this time sees a group of D&D characters with a barbarian with a big weapon, and a wizard with only a few spells...mostly to cast at a set time.

Sci-Fi got it's first big boost with Star Trek:The Next Generation towards the end of the '80's. And RPGs like Traveler and West End D6 Star Wars have their die hard fans, but they never much caught on big.

Spoiler: spoiler for size

Show

Into the '90's Sci Fi was on the rise. More Star Trek and Babylon 5. Independence Day. And right near the end: The Matrix. You also get the big rise of anime, and many other cartoons. The high magic shows like Hercules and Xena and Highlander. And video games with somewhat decent graphics.

Fans here loved lots more 'special effects', and characters that were magic.

Yet, D&D stayed very clearly in the setting of Medieval. Even Spelljammer was just a ship that flies...and does Medieval stuff.

2000 and the years that follow bring more Matrix, more special effects and even some popular blends of things like sci fi western, like Firefly. Anime, cartoons and video games vastly increased special effects.

And yet, D&D was still stuck in Medieval. Characters in D&D settings hunt for food and huddle around a fire for warmth. Magic gets a lot more flashy, but the setting stays dull.

By 2008 D&D had taken the turn to flashy lots of special effects for characters. But the setting was still Medieval, with dirt and fire.

By 2014 D&D had toned it back down a lot, But the setting was still Medieval, with dirt and fire.

And the last couple years have brought lost more special effects on TV shows and movies and video games. Even more so the whole rise of Super Heroes. Avengers Endgame is overflowing with CGI Spam. Many fans of D&D want to play characters like the super heroes in Endgame: covered in energy and blasting away.

So, why is D&D so stuck in Medieval? Is it still THAT popular? Was it ever? It seems a lot more people like settings that are anything else, but D&D does not change.

Why have we never seen a more updated setting? I mean really updated closer to modern day. How many games even use the Medieval setting? Or do most use a much more modern one anyway?

So, why don't the makes of D&D update?

This initial premise seems deeply flawed. Star Trek: The Next Generation, influential though it was, does not hold a candle to the influence that the original Star Trek, or of course Star Wars, had on popular culture. Or, for that matter, Sputnik. Science Fiction was more prevalent than Fantasy well before the 80s. Heck, I'd say it was more prevalent specifically in the pulp magazines and old movies shown on Saturday afternoon UHF TV stations that directly influenced D&D (admittedly, a lot of those 'sci fi's were 'such and such alien monster lands from outer space in 1950s Middle America and runs amok' as opposed to high flying adventures across the galaxy, but there was plenty of that as well).

One place where Medieval/Fantasy elements dominated compared to sci fi was wargames, from which D&D was derived. Warhammer 40k or the like had not been invented. This is why D&D started out as fantasy, not because fantasy was more popular than sci fi in the early-mid 70s.
*'fantasy' being what set Chainmail apart.

As to why it stuck, while sci fi RPGs like Traveller and WEG:Star Wars (which, I'll be honest, I don't know what you're talkin about. They may be small potatoes compared to D&D, but each of these were hugely successful RPGs during their peak) and Space Opera and Star Frontiers and Metamorphosis Alpha and GammaWorld and Aftermath and (you seeing a trend here?) never quite caught on nearly as much, well there are a number of theories.
First-to-market has always been a favorite concept. D&D was first, was a smash hit (relatively speaking) even in the 70s, and generally used that momentum to continue capturing a huge swath of anyone who might get into roleplaying games. It is Coke, and everyone else is Pepsi at best, RC cola most likely. It certainly has to be a significant factor, although I haven't seen anyone do any scientifically rigorous economic research into how much of an effect it is.
Also important, is that there is an inherent 'hook' -- you are an adventurer going into conveniently constrained environments that the DM can have mapped out ahead of time, looking for treasure and possibly combat*, and along the way the treasure (magic items) and XP (derived however) make you better at going back out and looking for more treasure to get you better at looking for treasure and so on indefinitely. It is a clear, obvious answer to the question of 'but what do we do with these characters?' that does not need a rigorously defined universe or an highly capable or inventive Game Master**
*yes, initially the idea was to get as much treasure with as little combat as possible. Plenty of people never played that way even in the TSR era.
**and, regardless of what the average age of gamers actually is, I find it unsurprising that the system that holds the top spot has design choices making it easy for middle- to high-school age kids to play by themselves, with the GM possibly learning the game along with the players.
Finally, as others have mentioned, a pseudo-medieval (honestly the swords and bows and horses rather than cannons and trains and planes or lasers and space fighters being the important points. As others have mentioned the actual medieval-ness is often paper-thin) setting keeps the world small, the solutions to problems relatively personal in scope, and the ability to solve problems through personal action and a special piece of loot all fairly plausible. Modern and Sci fi settings often have it such that the guy with the bigger spaceship (or power armor and a fusion rifle, when you have a laser pistol and your good looks) will win unless there's some amazingly good situational setup (GM and players are actually quite good at strategy, or the like) or some form of plot armor.

D&D is a fantasy game with a Medieval/Renaissance tech level. It also has some, but most assuredly not all and varying heavily by specific setting, of the cultural trappings of the European Medieval period.

Fantasy is by far a more popular genre than science fiction for tabletop roleplaying. The most successful challenger to D&D was also a fantasy game - the oWoD - it just had a modern setting and its cultural trappings were those of the extremely specific Goth subculture of the 1990s. The most popular 'futuristic' setting is Star Wars, which is also a fantasy game and draws on the cultural trappings of something like Western civilization circa 1870 - 1955 (the timeframe of the adventure serials Lucas drew upon for inspiration).

Gygax and D&D also drew heavily from 1870 - 1955 tropes. D&D towns are often small and (often somehow wall-less, although I don't think EGG or Dave ever made that mistake) towns out in the wilderness, being small inroads of civilization into the wild frontier. Very much like towns in Westerns. Then the PCs end up going on very Cliffhanger-like adventures. I always felt that D&D was equally H. Rider Haggard meets Zane Grey with a coat of paint provided by Tolkien than strictly Tolkien (or Leiber and Vance, as EGG suggested were more influential).
Edit: Mark bet me to it.

[Tvtyrant]

So, way back when, many years ago D&D was started as a fantasy game with the vague setting of Medieval Europe.

So through the '70's and '80's popular fantasy culture was dominated by Sword and Sorcery. The Tolkien books, of course. Also the works of Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock and Jack Vance. Movies were full of sword and sorcery, as so was TV with shows like He-Man. A fan of this time sees a group of D&D characters with a barbarian with a big weapon, and a wizard with only a few spells...mostly to cast at a set time.

Sci-Fi got it's first big boost with Star Trek:The Next Generation towards the end of the '80's. And RPGs like Traveler and West End D6 Star Wars have their die hard fans, but they never much caught on big.

Into the '90's Sci Fi was on the rise. More Star Trek and Babylon 5. Independence Day. And right near the end: The Matrix. You also get the big rise of anime, and many other cartoons. The high magic shows like Hercules and Xena and Highlander. And video games with somewhat decent graphics.

Fans here loved lots more 'special effects', and characters that were magic.

Yet, D&D stayed very clearly in the setting of Medieval. Even Spelljammer was just a ship that flies...and does Medieval stuff.

2000 and the years that follow bring more Matrix, more special effects and even some popular blends of things like sci fi western, like Firefly. Anime, cartoons and video games vastly increased special effects.

And yet, D&D was still stuck in Medieval. Characters in D&D settings hunt for food and huddle around a fire for warmth. Magic gets a lot more flashy, but the setting stays dull.

By 2008 D&D had taken the turn to flashy lots of special effects for characters. But the setting was still Medieval, with dirt and fire.

By 2014 D&D had toned it back down a lot, But the setting was still Medieval, with dirt and fire.

And the last couple years have brought lost more special effects on TV shows and movies and video games. Even more so the whole rise of Super Heroes. Avengers Endgame is overflowing with CGI Spam. Many fans of D&D want to play characters like the super heroes in Endgame: covered in energy and blasting away.

So, why is D&D so stuck in Medieval? Is it still THAT popular? Was it ever? It seems a lot more people like settings that are anything else, but D&D does not change.

Why have we never seen a more updated setting? I mean really updated closer to modern day. How many games even use the Medieval setting? Or do most use a much more modern one anyway?

So, why don't the makes of D&D update?

D&D is actually a medieval Western, with gunslingers and saloon towns, not a pseudo-medieval settings. Notice the general lack of farming or population? Tatooine and Forgotten Realms have more in common with Stagecoach then they do to Heinlein or mythology.

[Pex]

Playing in a world different from our own is what makes it fun. Not having modern conveniences makes magic magical and heroic deeds fantastical. Other genres are their own thing. The world is big enough to have all of them.

[FrogInATopHat]

Grave-robbing transitioned into archaeology about the time of the industrial revolution.

I love this line.

[Anonymouswizard]

Playing in a world different from our own is what makes it fun. Not having modern conveniences makes magic magical and heroic deeds fantastical. Other genres are their own thing. The world is big enough to have all of them.

Eh, the Earth set fantasy games I've played have tended to be more fun, even if we had access to mobile phones. Part of it was that magic, or mad science, tended to do what mundane science couldn't, so we have more tools.

I still remember trapping a demon in a notebook so that we'd have a record of our interrogation.

Not saying that Fantasy on other worlds is worse, just that I've had really good experiences with bringing the internet into fantasy games. Including the GM getting so excited k annoyed that he added an internet search skill after we stopped paying points into knowledge skills and just used Wikipedia.

[FrogInATopHat]

IME (as a librarian)

As a what!!!!????

Are we in some of the same facebook dumpster fires?

[LibraryOgre]

As a what!!!!????

Are we in some of the same facebook dumpster fires?

Possibly? I mean, there's a lot of dumpster fires over there.