Low Fantasy

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Better terms

How in the world can Midnight be considered 'low' fantasy?

There's a freakin god living somewhere around the north pole making a very succesful attempt to take over the world!!!

Once again, I maintain that there isn't really such a thing as low fantasy, and that from this thread it looks like a pastiche of things that are better identified on their own terms.

I'd like to propose some more exact terms:

Low Magic=everyone knows what that means

Sword and Sorcery=the stuff of E. Howard Hunt and Edgar Rice Burroughs. All sorcerors are high level, and all adventurers are highly tanned and run for weeks across bizarre alien landscapes pursuing princes and fighting Zanis.

Romantic Fantasy= all the medieval stuff: Arthur and his knights, Theseus, certain Cantebury tales, and so forth.

Gothic= varying levels of horror based fantasy

Fantasy= your classic literary fantasy of Jonathon Swift and Lewis Carrol

Myth= nuff said

Tall Tales= fantasy that occurs within the context of a magically tinged history, this category is fairly easy to define but I don't know that there aren't better terms. Alvin Maker and Pecos Bill should fit here.

X-punk= any genre can be modified by giving it a dark dystopian twist. Thus Cyber-punk, Steam-punk, Gothic-punk, and so forth.

There would be many other categories, but that's the way literature works. It's not dualistic it's differential. There is no if not A then B dynamic in literature, merely if not B then most likely one of 25 other categories that are also not B.

 

[Quickbeam]

I really like what Henry and Eric had to say in their respective posts. I'm all about High Fantasy, but prefer Lower Magic games...or at least games where magic is never made to feel mundane and ordinary.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Re: Better terms

How in the world can Midnight be considered 'low' fantasy?
There's a freakin god living somewhere around the north pole making a very succesful attempt to take over the world!!!

hmm... how best to say this.

Midnight fits MY definition of low fantasy.

Magic is very rare.
There are very few different species of "monsters".

The supernatural exists, but it is encountered much less frequently than in a typical D&D setting like Greyhawk.

The central theme is survival and often times you have to survive against very mundane forces such as weather and starvation.

Yes, there is a god in the works, but you don't usually notice him specifically. I think it would be a safe assumption to say that a great number of people think the Night Kings are in charge and don't really know much at all about Izrador.

Heroism is a big part of it, but in a much different way than most D&D games.

In most D&D games, if you save the town from a goblin tribe, you get a festival held in your name. In Midnight, you'd just as likely get stoned to death.

Maybe Midnight is Low Magic Fantasy-Punk?

 

[Gellion]

My idea of Low Fantasy is the King Arthur myths. My idea of High Fantasy are the Lunar games for the Playstation.

 

[Desdichado]

My idea of Low Fantasy is the King Arthur myths. My idea of High Fantasy are the Lunar games for the Playstation.

King Arthur almost defines High fantasy. You keep tossing around Lunar for Playstation as if we're supposed to know what that means.

 

[molonel]

This seems to be a thread I've seen on several message boards, lately. Monte Cook had a poll on his site asking people if they would buy a supplement geared at adapting D&D 3E to low-magic or no-magic settings. Many people responded yes.

On the one hand, you have people saying that D&D 3E has become too much like Diablo II. Oddly, you can even purchase a supplement to run a Diablo campaign. These people often see magic as trivialized in the present system. It's made into products. It is something you save up money for. You have item slots, and when those are full, you make slotless items or double up enchantments. Magic isn't something that inspires wonder or awe, anymore.

On the other hand, you have people who prefer high fantasy, epic heroism, high magic. While I sympathize with the low magic/no magic crowd, I probably prefer the high magic/high fantasy setting. My reasoning here is partly escapist. Someone above mentioned playing characters who weren't that much more powerful than ordinary folk.

Now, such a campaign obviously has rich story potential and character arcs and all that. I have a broad variety of gaming tastes, so I'm not slamming this style of gaming.

But let's face it. I play an average Joe 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When I game, and when I play a FANTASY game, furthermore, I am exerting my imagination. I want to imagine a world where magic exists, where dragons soar through the skies, where ancient weapons lie in guarded crypts. I want to play great heroes or diabolic villians (I love evil campaigns, I must confess).

I have played gritty, low magic campaigns. There are gaming systems better adapted to that than D&D, IMO.

Low magic or no magic campaigns are generally a much more intensive experience for the DM, in particular. If you don't have goodies or rewards, then your backstory and setting better damn well be cinematic in detail to make up for that.

Generally, as well, I think low magic and no magic campaigns work best from 1st through 7th or 8th level, or perhaps 10th level at most, because the power curve between a 20th level fighter and a 20th level wizard in a low magic setting is astronomical.

A low magic setting in D&D would require a revamping of the entire CR system. DR becomes something truly terrifying, and SR becomes much less important or meaningful.

Here is a page that talks about one low magic system someone developed based on Robert E. Howard's Conan books:

http://hyboria.xoth.net/sorcery/low_magic_system.htm

And more materials for that setting:

http://hyboria.xoth.net/sorcery/index.htm

 

[Henry]

I still reiterate my stance that high magic vs. low magic is defined not by how much is in the setting, but by how much the players can get their hands on. King Arthur is low magic, yet high fantasy. (Perhaps it would be called "high-ideal fantasy.") The only person in the tales with magic are Arthur with Excalibur, and perhaps the Holy Grail. Lancelot didn't have an enchanted sword, armor, horse, or anything, if I recall.

A world can still be low-magic, and have plains of glass, or floating hills, or waterfalls that run up instead of down. If that's high magic, then what would one call games in which every town has magical knick-knacks for sale, flush toilets run by water elementals, and eternal torches on sale for $9.95? Again, both have magic, but they need a term to separate them.

 

[diaglo]

The only person in the tales with magic are Arthur with Excalibur, and perhaps the Holy Grail. Lancelot didn't have an enchanted sword, armor, horse, or anything, if I recall.

Arthur's scabbard was more important

don't forget Morgan and Merlin or the rest of the Druids, if you believe the Mists of Avalon series

or even the potions used on Lancelot to conceive Galahad

or Gawain and the Green Knight

or the poor King Pelinore geased to find the beast

or etc...

there is plenty of magic in Arthurian legends.

Edit: Mary Stewart's version of Arthur starting with the Crystal Cave may be more appropriate for low fantasy and low magic.

but Mark Twain's version is very Greyhawk equivalent.