High Fantasy verses High Magic

[Traveller From Afar]

High fantasy is any game where a player spikes the punch with LSD.

 

[Elf Witch]

I took a course taught by Robert Collins who created the Conference on the Fantastic which is now I believe in its 25 year.

High Fantasy was defined as taking place in invented worlds.

Low Fantasy was defined as taking place in our world or a world similar like say Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series which is set in a medieval world that looks a lot like Great Britain.

Now almost all High Fantasy is also quest type novels with major Good Vs Evil plots.

Fantasy which is not about epic struggles are usually classified as Sword and Sorcery.

You don't hear the term Low Fantasy as much any more most of the time it is now referred to as Urban Fantasy.

I can't think of any published DnD worlds that are not High Fantasy they are all set in invented worlds.

The magic level really does not define it. You can have a High Fantasy world with little magic and a Low Fantasy world with lots. And it can happen vice versa.

 

[S'mon]

The "invented worlds" definition of high fantasy has never been in common use in RPG circles. The most usual RPG definition seems to be that in the old Dragon magazine article "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy", which fits Klaus's definition: 'High Fantasy is more focused on epic struggles of Good vs. Evil, typically following a Chosen One. Low Fantasy is more focused on the day-to-day struggles of the main characters, who may or may not be "heroic".' The article used The Silmarillion as exemplary of High Fantasy, Thieves' World as exemplary of Low Fantasy.

So Fafhrd/Mouser is Low Fantasy although quite High Magic, Conan is Low Fantasy, Elric & The Eternal Champion saga is High Fantasy, although some of Moorcock's worlds are Low Magic.

Edit: I see this discussion has come up before:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...fantasy-v-swords-n-sorcery-2.html#post1342386

 

[Elf Witch]

The "invented worlds" definition of high fantasy has never been in common use in RPG circles. The most usual RPG definition seems to be that in the old Dragon magazine article "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy", which fits Klaus's definition: 'High Fantasy is more focused on epic struggles of Good vs. Evil, typically following a Chosen One. Low Fantasy is more focused on the day-to-day struggles of the main characters, who may or may not be "heroic".' The article used The Silmarillion as exemplary of High Fantasy, Thieves' World as exemplary of Low Fantasy.

So Fafhrd/Mouser is Low Fantasy although quite High Magic, Conan is Low Fantasy, Elric & The Eternal Champion saga is High Fantasy, although some of Moorcock's worlds are Low Magic.

Edit: I see this discussion has come up before:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...fantasy-v-swords-n-sorcery-2.html#post1342386

Yes Gygax and crew basically made up definitions that were not how they were being used in literary circles. We had an avid gamer in my class he and Dr Collins got into it one day over this.

It makes it kind of hard to have a discussion if everyone is using a different definition.

 

[Kzach]

The "invented worlds" definition of high fantasy has never been in common use in RPG circles.

If you were discussing the nature of physics on a physics discussion forum for fans of physics and they all used terms that weren't used by scientists, such as calling quarks "gold-pressed latinums", which set of terms would you consider to be the definitive ones?

 

[Jhaelen]

High fantasy typically takes place in an invented, sometimes parallel, other world. Low fantasy typically takes place in real-world environments. The high and low refer mostly to difference from the reality you know.

Yup. The difference is most obvious in the Ars Magica setting 'Mythic Europe'. On the surface it's all but indistinguishable from the real world Medieval Europe making it a low fantasy setting. It's also a high-magic setting, exemplified by the existence of the Magi of the Order of Hermes and the supernatural realms (Divine, Infernal, Fey, Magic).

 

[Viking Bastard]

I knows it when I sees it.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

If you were discussing the nature of physics on a physics discussion forum for fans of physics and they all used terms that weren't used by scientists, such as calling quarks "gold-pressed latinums", which set of terms would you consider to be the definitive ones?

The one more widely used. Do you call element 74 Wolfram or Tungsten? Element 11; Sodium or Natrium?

 

[S'mon]

If you were discussing the nature of physics on a physics discussion forum for fans of physics and they all used terms that weren't used by scientists, such as calling quarks "gold-pressed latinums", which set of terms would you consider to be the definitive ones?

If discussing Physics, I'd use Physics terms. If discussing Theology, I'd use terms from Theology. If discussing literature, I'd use literary terms. When discussing RPGs, I use RPG terms.

This is predicated of course on those terms being generally accepted within the relevant community. An objective science like Physics is much more likely to have generally accepted terms than is either literature or RPG world/setting design.

Edit: If you're suggesting that RPG designers (& users) should defer to literary theorists in their use of definitions for application to RPG settings, well I'd think that was ridiculous.

 

[Umbran]

The "invented worlds" definition of high fantasy has never been in common use in RPG circles.

If it hadn't been used in these circles for one or more well-considered, good reasons, that's okay. If I had to hazard a guess, though, the RPG use is not a considered change form the prior standard, but instead stems from a bunch of people using a term, incorrectly thinking or claiming they knew what it meant, because they couldn't be bothered to look it up.

Don't tell me geeks don't do that all the time.

Edit: If you're suggesting that RPG designers (& users) should defer to literary theorists in their use of definitions for application to RPG settings, well I'd think that was ridiculous.

I don't think RPG designers should defer to literary theorists, but they should show more than a little consideration to the audience. The term was in use in literary study for a long time before RPGs even existed, and large chunks of the RPG audience also tend to talk literary theory about sci-fi and fantasy. So, their own people were (and are) already using the term in the literary sense.

Given that it is not even being used by RPGs as technical term, but in a largely literary sense there as well, the muddling of meaning is not what I'd call smart move towards better communication.