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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4609121" data-attributes="member: 15538">I think part of it is the societal structure. Swords-and-sorcery worlds tend to be rather stratified, yet a character can become someone else just by going down the road... or change their standing by slaying an ogre. Most people are as stable as dirt, but your characters stand out precisely because they are willing to take extreme risks in order to do things outside society. I think that is why the cunning rogue and the wandering sellsword are two of the major archetypes, along with the wizard willing to pay nearly any price for power. Religion cuts across social lines, although medieval society is mirrored in the hierarchy of friars, bishops, and so forth. But even the king is not immune to the portents and doctrines lain out by divine guidance and enshrined in tradition.Another part is the magical, the dreamlike. Some people get this kick in other ways, whether it's alt-history or post-human sci-fi, but fantasy is an easy gateway to elsewherewhen. Spy thrillers tend to be fantasies about danger and extreme competence, but in fantasy, the fantasy encompasses not only the great but the small. Pig farmers, tiny dragonets, villages of mushroom people are themselves adventures because they are outside the ordinary, in much the same way Morocco or WWII-era Germany are outside the ordinary for most gamers. Finally, and this is just a supposition, I get the sense that many gamers, moreso than the general public, view violence and strife as something that can be channeled, but never excised, from the human. The paladin is an embodiment of force used for good, while the thief embodies force turned toward simple survival. The enemies are the truly inimical and ignoble... petty thieves, inhuman monsters, empty-hearted tyrants. The really great villains of fantasy are often, in a sense, heroes... Saurson's betrayal is impressive and hence admirable, although we simultaneously depise his evil and pity his sickened soul. Fellow rogues and zealots, who initially seem foes, become friends as soon as they see how to turn their alliance against common foes. Thus Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, two individuals with no previous loyalty to each other, become partners in crime, and then enemies of the Thieves' Guild, side by side. Even games of courtly intrigue and romance center around the idea of less sympathetic figures who endanger the interests of the PCs. The fantasy world tends to be a stark place of literal violence, metaphorical challenge, and continuous struggle between rival powers.</blockquote>

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