D&D 5E Sword & Sorcery vs. Heroic Fantasy

Sacrosanct · Nov 23, 2017

I don’t think there is necessarily less magic, but it’s a lot less in your face than D&D. You don’t see mages casting spells in every encounter or situation, and you see a lot less fireballs and magic missiles. It’s more subtle. Illusions, necromancy, and conjuration make up the bulk of magic in S&S

Hussar · Nov 24, 2017

The defining element of S&S vs Epic fantasy is scale, not necessarily magic level. SoFI is definitely epic fantasy, but, is pretty low magic for example.

In order for a setting to be focused more on S&S, it has to ensure that the focus of the campaign is much more local. You don't have casts of thousands and a campaign that spans the entire setting. It's much more dealing with the individuals rather than the setting as a whole. So, something like an Isle of Dread scenario or the current Tomb of Annihilation is closer to a S&S campaign than something like, say, Dragonlance or the Tiamat modules.

Lehrbuch · Nov 24, 2017

Hussar said:
The defining element of S&S vs Epic fantasy is scale, not necessarily magic level.

While I do get what you are saying, I don't think that scale is genre defining either.

Hussar said:
In order for a setting to be focused more on S&S, it has to ensure that the focus of the campaign is much more local. You don't have casts of thousands and a campaign that spans the entire setting. It's much more dealing with the individuals rather than the setting as a whole....

Take, for example, Moorcock's Eternal Champion. That is S&S, but characters range across the entire multiverse, and entire civilisations can be destroyed in a kind-of-off-hand way, in a few paragraphs.

I think that you right though, that S&S has a greater focus on the protagonist characters. But that doesn't mean that it has to be local. S&S characters can still be god-emperors and leaders and generals and arch-magi, and the plot can be enormous in scale, encompassing many worlds and dimensions and times. S&S characters can still have enormous influence and impact in their setting.

What makes it S&S however is that the story is not about what the S&S characters did. That is kind of an incidental detail. The story is about the individual(s) who did those things.

And it is, as I said previously, a continuum with the other fantasy genres.

Lidgar · Nov 24, 2017

If I want to play S&S, I play DCC. It gets it pretty spot on IMO.

Sacrosanct · Nov 24, 2017

Another thing seems to be S&S has a lot fewer magic items. If there is a magic item, it’s probably unique and part of the actual story in importance. Nothing like the frequency we see in the game.

Lehrbuch · Nov 24, 2017

Sacrosanct said:
Another thing seems to be S&S has a lot fewer magic items. If there is a magic item, it’s probably unique and part of the actual story in importance. Nothing like the frequency we see in the game.

Although I think that is a function of literature compared to a game, rather than a consequence of a specific genre. Literature (whether Epic, S&S, Heroic, whatever) hardly ever features generic, mass-produced magic items. That's more an artefact of gaming.

Hussar · Nov 24, 2017

Lehrbuch said:
Although I think that is a function of literature compared to a game, rather than a consequence of a specific genre. Literature (whether Epic, S&S, Heroic, whatever) hardly ever features generic, mass-produced magic items. That's more an artefact of gaming.

And, again, it depends on the writer as well. Cook's Black Company series features a TON of magic items. Air force flying carpets, just for an example. Or, take Thieves World, another pretty solid S&S setting. A major element of the series was the sale of a shopping cart full of cursed magic items that flooded the setting. And, again, in that setting, magic was hardly rare or all that mysterious. It was common enough that you actually had wizard "guilds" of sorts - like the Blue Star Adepts.

But, to me, what do those two series have in common? Really narrow, local focus. Even though the Black company was part of world shaking events, everything is focused on the Company. Thieves World is a series of short stories all set in the same city. Again, really local focus.

Lehrbuch · Nov 24, 2017

Hussar said:
And, again, it depends on the writer as well.

Yes, absolutely.

Hussar said:
Cook's Black Company series features a TON of magic items...Or, take Thieves World...But, to me, what do those two series have in common?

Both series also post-date D&D. So, potentially the authors were influenced in some way by the kinds of stories and scenarios that arise from game play.

Henry · Nov 24, 2017

Melkor said:
In a lot of Sword & Sorcery, magic is distrusted/something to be feared, and often used by the evil characters in the story rather than the hero. PCs with access to unlimited cantrips wouldn't really fit the bill in tales like that.

That’s always been my take, as well. The protagonist of a S&S story may even have magic-using allies (Conan’s Pelias, for example), but it is uncommon; they themselves rarely use magic, and swordplay or steely determination wins out in the end over wizardly tricks.

Henry · Nov 24, 2017

Lehrbuch said:
Yes, absolutely.

Both series also post-date D&D. So, potentially the authors were influenced in some way by the kinds of stories and scenarios that arise from game play.

D&D is the thing that really muddies the waters quite a bit, eventually influencing (one could postulate) every bit of fantasy that happens after it. Heck, even as early as 1978, Andre Norton was writing Quag Keep. Sometimes it’s hard to classify fantasy stories in any way other than tonally thanks to the mixing of genres. You could write Sword and Sorcery in the Forgotten Realms (say, a story about the witches of Rashemen and their warrior companions) as easily as you could write High Fantasy in Greyhawk (a story of the first fall of the Temple of Elemental Evil, for example).

D&D 5E Sword & Sorcery vs. Heroic Fantasy

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