Sword & Sorcery or High Fantasy?

DO your D&D games lean toward S&S or High Fantasy?

  • Sword & Sorcery

    Votes: 44 31.2%
  • High Fantasy

    Votes: 30 21.3%
  • Somewhere in between

    Votes: 58 41.1%
  • Other (please share!)

    Votes: 9 6.4%


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Swords-and sorcery, low fantasy:
Arguably, Conan
The Beastmaster
Lankhmar
The Coming of the Horseclans

Swords-and-sorcery, high fantasy:
Elric
The Dying Earth
Lawrence Watt-Evans's Ethshar series

Well, now that you've modified your position, we're in agreement. :p
Considering the amount of deities and magic in the Lankhmar/Swords series, if you're classing it as low fantasy, I don't have a problem.
 

I chose somewhere in between. I like magic to be magic, with a sense of mystery and wonder. But I don't like worlds that make no sense, where the magic doesn't match up with the culture that has developed.
 

I choose other.

The D&D games I've ran have tended towards epic high fantasy (Spelljammer, Forgotten Realms). I did my home brewed world stuff in other systems until towards the end of 3.5 when I started writing one of my free form settings up as a actual game. That setting is more of a modern (as historians understand it) fantasy. The world is sort of an anachronistic mix of things from the 17th through the early 20th century. Magic is common and scientific, there's some steampunk like things, but there really isn't enough soot and goggles for proper steampunk. Swords and firearms are still important and a magic user is not the be all and end all of power.

I'm not really sure where it fits on that scale.
 

I choose other.

The D&D games I've ran have tended towards epic high fantasy (Spelljammer, Forgotten Realms). I did my home brewed world stuff in other systems until towards the end of 3.5 when I started writing one of my free form settings up as a actual game. That setting is more of a modern (as historians understand it) fantasy. The world is sort of an anachronistic mix of things from the 17th through the early 20th century. Magic is common and scientific, there's some steampunk like things, but there really isn't enough soot and goggles for proper steampunk. Swords and firearms are still important and a magic user is not the be all and end all of power.

I'm not really sure where it fits on that scale.

"Slayers fantasy."
 

A bit of both, with the emphasis in S&S.

The mix comes from my games being a bit "cleaner" (both in terms of actual soil and in getting more a PG than an R rating) than S&S tends to be -- much more High Fantasy in that regard.

But, I prefer my heroes to be, by and large, martial types. Arcanists are background advisors and infrequent, unconventional heroes. Magic should be ritualistic and potent, but dangerous and unstable. Those are definitely characteristics I associate with S&S.

In practice, my campaigns are more mixed because I have at least one player who is strongly high fantasy in his preferences. I'm willing to compromise in the name of fun.
 

"Slayers fantasy."

If you're referring to Hajime Kanzaka's novel series and it's adaptations and derivatives, no.

It's influences have more in common with Laputa, Last Exile, Ivalice, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, His Majesty's Dragon, SM Sterling's General Series, and a few other places, including Hornblower series, the Aubrey–Maturin series, and the Sharpe series.
 


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