D&D: High Fantasy vs. Sword & Sorcery

[DragonLancer]

High fantasy every time.

 

[GreatLemur]

If those are my only choices, I've gotta go with sword & sorcery. The game is suffering from too much Tolkienism as it is, never mind dragging freaking C.S. Lewis into it.

 

[Aus_Snow]

High fantasy. It's what D&D does, and does well.

Otherwise, look elsewhere for your roleplaying fun (or get ready to house rule the poor ol' game to within an inch of its life).

 

[Desdichado]

Honestly, you should have prefaced this poll with a collection of genre tenets as there are a great many ENWorld posters (not necessarily in this thread, as of yet) who consider any Fantasy with combat, magic, and monsters to be 'Swords & Sorcery' (which, of course, isn't the case).

I did. Provided Wikipedia links and everything.

 

[jdrakeh]

I voted High Fantasy. At present, the only things overtly lifted from Swords& Sorcery in D&D are the Barbarian core class, some scattered magic items, and the concept of "Necromancy" as evil (so far as I can tell). The High Fantasy elements of the game (e.g., kingdoms of elves and other demi-humans, easily acessible magic, monsters in every locale, escalating character power, etc) are arguably the defining features of the game. Lose those, and you lose the core of what makes D&D the thing that it is.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Low Fantasy

Yeah, low fantasy for me as well, although I think D&D is really its own genre at this point.

I love how that wiki article on low fantasy includes a plug for "many d20 manufacturers, such as Skirmisher Publishing, LLC."

Ahh, yes, the paragon of d20 manufacturing, Skirmisher Publishing, whom you may have last heard of when I exlaimed, "Who the is Skirmisher Publishing?"

 

[Mystery Man]

After carefully considering the distinction between the two subgenres I can definitively say I prefer a balance between the two.

 

[Desdichado]

I voted High Fantasy. At present, the only things overtly lifted from Swords& Sorcery in D&D are the Barbarian core class, some scattered magic items, and the concept of "Necromancy" as evil (so far as I can tell).

The Necromancer was from Tolkien. "Necromancers of Naat" by Clark Ashton Smith portrayed them as fairly benign.

How about the whole paradigm of slogging through some underground or temple complex to find some treasure? You could make a case that Moria is the archtypical dungeon, but I think THE WHOLE POINT of D&D as it's usually played is cribbed wholesale from the plots of dozens of Howard and Leiber stories.

 

[Troll Wizard]

S&S - mean and gritty medieval...

 

[Xyxox]

Whereas High Fantasy tastes great, Swords and Sorcery is less filling.