High Fantasy/Low Fantasy/Power Fantasy

[Desdichado]

I was under the assumption that low fantasy=sword and sorcery fantasy. Aren't the terms interchangeable?

Sometimes, but not necessarily. Other fantasy subgenres can also be called low fantasy.

The Wikipedia article on low fantasy, actually, does a good job of demonstrating why it's a poorly concieved term, and one that I tend to avoid using.

 

[jdrakeh]

I was under the assumption that low fantasy=sword and sorcery fantasy. Aren't the terms interchangeable?

It depends on how you're using the term "Low Fantasy." If you're using it to refer only to fiction or RPG settings with low magic, no. Frex, Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar stories are considered to be Swords & Sorcery fiction, yet they are rife with magic. If you're using it to refer to fiction with short arcs (you can't really apply the term in this way to RPG settings), yes.

 

[S'mon]

Do critical legal theory types think more like a pure mathematician or a theoretical physicist?

Neither, they think like a Sociologist - or like a LitCrit professor. Mostly they 'do' Sociolegal, not Law, with a particular strong political bent.

 

[S'mon]

"Swords & Sorcery" was of course a term invented by Fritz Leiber to describe his Fafhrd/Mouser stories, so hopefully they count.

I think you can certainly have epic Swords and Sorcery - Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories for certain, and possibly Hour of the Dragon (Conan) or Rime Isle (Fafhrd/Mouser).

That old Dragon article "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy" emphasised the importance of tone, and for its example of 'High Fantasy' used The Silmarillion, in particular Feanor's doomed battle with Morgoth. Its example of 'Low Fantasy' was Jubal of the Thieves' World stories' obsessive acquisition of gold.

 

[Tale]

I tend to side with the same definitions put forth on Wikipedia. It seems that these words have been adopted by many for use in improper context. Improper use has spread enough to possibly become a proper new definition. Though I consider that lamentable as it confuses the language.

I see some in this thread putting forth what I interpret as an argument that RPGs and literature have distinct languages and the words relevant to this discussion mean different things depending on the particular context. However, given the immense areas of overlap between Fantasy Roleplaying and Fantasy Literature I can only say that declaring language used by the two to be incompatible is somewhat absurd.

Maybe inevitable, but still absurd.

 

[Starfox]

I see some in this thread putting forth what I interpret as an argument that RPGs and literature have distinct languages and the words relevant to this discussion mean different things depending on the particular context. However, given the immense areas of overlap between Fantasy Roleplaying and Fantasy Literature I can only say that declaring language used by the two to be incompatible is somewhat absurd.

Head on!

This is exactly the question I wanted to put to the community when I opened the thread. Should games and literature fandom try to share the same terms or not? In my everyday gaming it is fairly inconsequential what the definitions of high and low fantasy are. I don't really care a lot about if Sword and Sorcery is high or low fantasy. But it is good to have a common language to describe what we do. I think ENworld is a god place to do so and even if we don't agree, at least we see each others points.

I think that to do more than that, to really try and define what these terms mean to gamers, would take a moderated debate face-to-face at a series of conventions. I don't think gamers are interested enough in the terminology to do that, and as long as we are not, the literary terms will remain the "offical" terms. Because fans of literature are more interested and engaged in these terms than gamers are.

 

[Primal]

Head on!

This is exactly the question I wanted to put to the community when I opened the thread. Should games and literature fandom try to share the same terms or not? In my everyday gaming it is fairly inconsequential what the definitions of high and low fantasy are. I don't really care a lot about if Sword and Sorcery is high or low fantasy. But it is good to have a common language to describe what we do. I think ENworld is a god place to do so and even if we don't agree, at least we see each others points.

I think that to do more than that, to really try and define what these terms mean to gamers, would take a moderated debate face-to-face at a series of conventions. I don't think gamers are interested enough in the terminology to do that, and as long as we are not, the literary terms will remain the "offical" terms. Because fans of literature are more interested and engaged in these terms than gamers are.

In fact, I wrote a bit about this (how literary genres impact and relate to RPG genres) in my thesis; however, my academic perspective was from a librarian's point of view, so a litcrit professor might think my analysis and methods were too limited (I wish to point out that genres in literature and RPGs was just one of the issues I researched).

 

[arscott]

This is exactly the question I wanted to put to the community when I opened the thread. Should games and literature fandom try to share the same terms or not? In my everyday gaming it is fairly inconsequential what the definitions of high and low fantasy are. I don't really care a lot about if Sword and Sorcery is high or low fantasy. But it is good to have a common language to describe what we do. I think ENworld is a god place to do so and even if we don't agree, at least we see each others points.

Yes, the gamers should hew to the literary definitions of such terms, given their literary origin. In this instance, I think we mostly do, though that's been obfuscated by the poorly focused WikiPedia articles, and the inherently ambiguous nature of Genre labels.

Certainly before this post, I've almost never heard the term "high fantasy" used in a manner inconsistent with it's literary definition on EN world. And "low fantasy", I don't think I've ever seen used before.

I have the sneaking suspicion that high and low fantasy are like high and low elves: "high" is a generally accepted (if mildly pretentious) label for a certain subcategory, but use "low" in the wrong neck of the woods, and you're liable to get yourself shot with any number of finely-crafted arrows.

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, the gamers should hew to the literary definitions of such terms, given their literary origin. In this instance, I think we mostly do, though that's been obfuscated by the poorly focused WikiPedia articles, and the inherently ambiguous nature of Genre labels.

Yeah, why would they not? Why would we have our own labels different from literature? Movies don't have different genre labels that literature. A Western is still a Western regardless of rather it stars John Wayne, or is written by Louis L'amour.

Gaming is a different medium than literature, certainly, but it doesn't have totally different genre conventions than literature that aren't compatible with each other.

Gamers do, however, seem to be relatively unfamiliar with genre, and use genre labels much more sloppily than I'd like. That leads to confusion, but it's not a problem with the terminology, it's a problem with the ignorance of those using it.

 

[Starfox]

In my experience, both here and elsewhere, gamers define high fantasy as high-powered magic, flight, artillery wizards, resurrection and all the other DnD tropes. What I'd call high magic. Whereas low fantasy in gamer terms involves a lot of mud and "historical" elements such as slow healing. Harnmaster would be an example of this style.

These terms are quite different from the literature terms as I understand them.

Because gamer usage is so closely related to magic I think High Magic and Low Magic would be better terms.