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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3694626" data-attributes="member: 42582">QFT.I agree with all those who have said that D&D tends towardss sword-and-sorcery plot/action, but with many high-fantasy tropes. And I voted S&S, because I feel that high fantasy tends to vest too much power in the GM at the expense of the players - it is the GM who determines the themes and the overall direction of the plot.I don't think that S&S excludes world-saving plots or wolrd-shaking action. For example, Conan stopped Nathok's invasion in Black Colossus, and (as others pointed out) became King of Aquilonia. In many games which are being described as low-level S&S but high-level HF, I think that the transition is often really to this more world-shattering S&S.As the Wikipedia entry on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy" target="_blank">Low Fantasy</a> suggests, the difference betwee S&S of world-shattering scopm and HF, is that of moral motivation. And (as Melan points out in the quote above) PCs in D&D tend to be motivated by mercenary considerations, not moral ones. Even when a PC, like a Paladin, is morally motivated, a High Fantasy approach tends to put control in the hands of the GM - and thus the GM will wield alignment sanctions as a weapon to keep the PC on track - whereas a Sword and Sorcery approach puts control in the hands of the player, who can (for example) choose to fail the test of morality and allow evil to triumph (or at least insist on material rewards for defeating it).The changes in alignment in 3rd Ed, from a straight-jacket to a descriptor, actually facilitate S&S play, although the default assumption in most published campaign and adventure material that PCs are Good undoes much of this good work.</blockquote>

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