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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 6263341" data-attributes="member: 20323">What a great framework! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I do wonder if there's a 4th axis that some folks have alluded to: the role of the adventurer & scope of the quest. For example, in FR there are bands of adventuring parties, "adventuring" is recognized as a pastime, and quests tend to have high national/global/cosmic stakes.So, I asked about "middle fantasy", and I think of it as the origin point (0,0) on that coordinate system. For example, I consider the Witcher setting by Andrzej Sapkowski to be an example of "middle fantasy" using this definition. Maybe another literary example could be the Black Company? I suppose something like Greyhawk or Kingdoms of Kalamar comes down to how the DM ran them, but I've always thought of those as somewhere between high and low fantasy.Magic prevalance (0) is neither everyday nor is it exceedingly rare. So it's uncommon and there may be political restrictions to its use, popular superstitions against it, and other cultural elements that show it is part of the setting but the average person doesn't encounter it much and when they do it tends to be life-changing.Magic power (0) is neither vast nor minimal. Dragons, mighty spells, healing magic, and magic items would exist, but the more powerful stuff would be rare and capped off at a certain point, while the less powerful stuff would be perhaps uncommon. While the less powerful stuff wouldn't necessarily have a great story behind it, the more powerful stuff would have some important narrative.Setting (0) means that Earth folklore and real-world cultural aspects are drawn upon without it actually being Earth or an earth facsimile. Something like "bog standard" magical medieval Europe-esque setting would fit here.And if we were going to add in role of adventurers/scope as a 4th axis....Scope (0) means that there are a mix of local/personal challenges and national/grand challenges, while things on the extreme ends (scraping silver just to get by & confronting gods in their realm) would not be the focus of action. Adventuring might be (mis)understood in a cultural context, but it would be an uncommon or rare thing. So while there are other adventurers out there in the world either they don't cross paths with the protagonists or they play only a supporting role.Obviously, any discussion of genre is trying to distill principles from non-homogenous source material, but how does that look as a definition for "middle fantasy"?</blockquote>

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