Poll: Low Fantasy vs High Fantasy and a little teaser :-p

[Hermundure]

Hi all,

while creating my new adventure I really wonder if you guys and girls out there enjoy a high fantasy over a low fantasy setting more or vice versa.
I wont post my own preference here to not bias in a direction or another ;-p

As a little "teaser" I will attach some of the paintings I did for my adventure and which will pop up in one part of the adventure or the other.
A few more are in the works and some are still hidden from sight (monsters etc.) ;-p

Steffen

[LordEntrails]

Really nice artwork! Looks great. I wish I had a fraction of your artistic talent.

[sjard]

Generally I prefer Low-Fantasy over High (Using the definition that High is the world shaking quest vs Low being smaller scale adventuring, I don't buy the High/Low magic definition personally, so for me, for example D&D is generally a Low Fantasy game that can be done as High Fantasy (Princes of the Apocalypse being more High Fantasy in scale.)).

[dulux-oz]

For me the quintessential low-fantasy game is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, where as something like D&D (1st, 2nd & 3.5E) I would call high-fantasy - in the former, a +1 sword occurs maybe once or twice a 10-adventure campaign, while in the later I've see official published adventures where an entire platoon (that's about 40 people) with +1 swords and +1 daggers to go with them, not to mention the +1 shields.

Now, as to which I enjoy the most: well, it depends upon the setting. I enjoy WFRP because its dark, magic-poor and because some of the BBEGs and even the SBEGs are wizards (diabolists in some cases) and when you get your @rse fried by a fireball you know you're in over your head - and that's a hell of a lot of fun.

Similarly, I enjoy a high-fantasy DnD campaign when its me frying other people's @rses all day long with fireball after fireball after lightning bolt after fireball.

And yes, I know that high-fantasy doesn't necessarily mean high-magic and vice-versa but the two terms tend to get used as similes for one another. If you are particularly referring to how often the fantastic shows up in a setting, then that depends upon the setting.

You see, for me its all about the stories that we're telling - as long as the story suits the setting and the setting suits the story, then it doesn't really matter if its high- or low-fantasy. Let me give you two examples: there is an anthology of stories (can't remember the name, but its published by Baen on their free ebook list) that is a series of "film noir / gumshoe" detective short stories - but they're all done with a fantasy twist. In one the "Sam Spade" detective is a Vampire, for example. The stories work because foremost they're good stories and they would be good stories without the fantasy element.

Second example: the entire Honor Harrington series of Military SF stories by David Weber (also published by Baen) - that's a high-SF setting (which for purposes of the argument can be read as a high-fantasy setting - "sufficiently advance technology is indistinguishable from magic") but the plot lines and even some of the characters are lifted straight out of the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution of the late 1700s, early 1800s - a very "low-SF" setting - but the stories work very, very well.

So, I'm not going to vote in the poll because there's not an entry for me: Neither or Both.

(And I really encourage everyone, even if you're not into SF, to read the Honor Harrington series - you'll be glad you did! :) )

[Mask_of_winter]

To me, low fantasy means Sword & Sorcery like Conan and Game of Thrones where magic is rare. High Fantasy means magic is such a big part of the world that magic items can be purchased and sold, and magic users are everywhere.
It can also mean the supernatural is overt in a high fantasy setting and covert in low fantasy.
I find it interesting that, while over 70% of the games being played on FG are D&D (and its clones), 80% of the votes (small sample size at this time) seems to indicates people prefer low fantasy.

[LordEntrails]

...
(And I really encourage everyone, even if you're not into SF, to read the Honor Harrington series - you'll be glad you did! :) )
I'll second this. Weber is a good writer any time, and this series is exceptional.

[GunnarGreybeard]

To me, low fantasy means Sword & Sorcery like Conan and Game of Thrones where magic is rare. High Fantasy means magic is such a big part of the world that magic items can be purchased and sold, and magic users are everywhere.
It can also mean the supernatural is overt in a high fantasy setting and covert in low fantasy.
This, right there.

[Varsuuk]

Thieves World vs. Forgotten Realms ;) another example.

[Dorian]

I prefer me some low to mid Fantasy. Admittedly I've been exposed more to those 2 genres over the other. A little "realism" is what I like in my games. Recently I have left my group after GMing them for 3 years and lastly 3 games as a player. The ohter players only wanted to be heroes with very little to no consequence, horror or lethality. That really broke immersion and character roleplay progression for me.
I would still try high fantasy if the setting sounds really appealing to me.

[Honken]

I always mostly enjoyed low to mid range in all kinds of settings. The progression in a campaign though is that of broadening the scope, and thus low becomes high if you play long enough. That is also why i prefer slow character progression! ;) For me, the story is the reward, not the progression.

/H

[Dorian]

I always mostly enjoyed low to mid range in all kinds of settings. The progression in a campaign though is that of broadening the scope, and thus low becomes high if you play long enough. That is also why i prefer slow character progression! ;) For me, the story is the reward, not the progression.

/H

Well, in my head character roleplay progression tends to be the definition for character growth in story. ;):) I think interesting and growing characters and the immersive exploration of the setting are one of the most rewarding roleplaying experiences. :)

[Erin Righ]

(And I really encourage everyone, even if you're not into SF, to read the Honor Harrington series - you'll be glad you did! :) )

Off topic, but have you heard anything more about the movie? I understand they are having trouble finding a 6' half oriental statuesque martial artist woman who can act :D

[Black Hammer]

I enjoy both ends of the spectrum, as well as the elusive middle, although I've been pretty burned out on generic fantasy as either a GM or player for a couple of years now. About the only ones I'd see myself running are Warhammer Fantasy and Legend of the Five Rings.

[rodney418]

Definitely low to medium. Once you're getting into going down to the local magic store to buy Resurrection Scrolls I am definitely out. Having said that, I am currently running a Game of Thrones campaign (using the Savage Worlds ruleset) and although it's working very well, there are times I wish I could just stick in a teeny-tiny bit more magic stuff. It does make me have to work harder as a GM, but that's not a bad thing either.

[jrworden]

I am a fan of Low to Medium style when it involves fantasy... magical weapons and items are super rare and coveted. But I do on occasion love high fantasy when the mood strikes. I especially love Medium Fantasy/Medium to High tech campaign.

[dulux-oz]

Off topic, but have you heard anything more about the movie? I understand they are having trouble finding a 6' half oriental statuesque martial artist woman who can act :D

I heard it was having trouble finding a 4' long feline-link hexapod :p

No, I think they've run into "production difficulties" - its been almost 10 years now, so I think it not gonna happen - then again, it took them several goes and several decades to get LotR done.

[Himajin]

I prefer Tolkien-style low fantasy campaigns. Anything too out there just feels forced and artificial to me most of the time.

[Mirloc]

I prefer Tolkien-style low fantasy campaigns. Anything too out there just feels forced and artificial to me most of the time.

I have a hard time defining Tolkien with low-fantasy. Magic in all of its forms should be super rare, and yet by the end of The Hobbit, Bilbo is toting around mithril chain armor, a sword that reacts to enemies, and of course the One Ring. Frodo gets the same items and the elven cloaks which are apparently handed out as baby swaddling by the elves.

I know it's personal definition, but I'd place Tolkien at the high-end of medium fantasy or the low-end of high fantasy.

The most common definition would be low fantasy would be something like the Ring of Fire series. The rules that govern the world are either the same as our world or very near it. High fantasy is a world where the rules follow some other form of logic. Tolkien had the dead rising to follow Aragorn, Gandalf calls eagles capable of carrying a full-grown human nearly indefinitely, and the aforementioned hobbit with a plethora of magic items at their disposal. The amount of magic prevalent in all of his novels clearly stamps Middle-Earth as high fantasy.

[dulux-oz]

And there we have a prime example of subjective definitions - one man's low-fantasy is another man's high. This is, I believe, one of the problems with this type of categorization - and why, as a both a GM and a Player, I prefer to concentrate on the story being told. If I have to get into low- vs high-anything with my fellow RPGers for a game, I find it best to actually describe what I want/prefer from the game system as opposed to using subjective terms.

Actually, Wikipedia gives a pretty good set of definitions and examples of low- and high-fantasy, so maybe we should use them as a basis from which to have this discussion.

And as a tangent but relevant comment, let me reiterate what Mask-Of-Winter said back in Post #5 - with approx 70% of all RPGs being played being DnD (of some sort, or its variants) - a generally accepted mid- to high-fantasy setting (Ebberon, anyone?) I find it amusing that the poll is running about 58% low-fantasy - possibly people are being self-deluded, or maybe they just can't find a real low-fantasy game and so "settle" for DnD :)

(I'll go put on my asbestos suit, now)

Cheers

[Himajin]

I have a hard time defining Tolkien with low-fantasy.

To each his own, but if I remember right the author himself was adamant that Middle Earth was actually our Earth, just set in an imaginary time period of its past. Most of the magic/unearthly happenings were far from the norm in daily life there, and that's the type of setting I prefer.

[Nylanfs]

I prefer Shadowrun, not sure where that follows actually. :)

[rodney418]

To each his own, but if I remember right the author himself was adamant that Middle Earth was actually our Earth, just set in an imaginary time period of its past. Most of the magic/unearthly happenings were far from the norm in daily life there, and that's the type of setting I prefer.

Agreed. Magic is very far removed from daily life in Tolkien, and only available to a tiny, tiny minority of the population, and not at all to humans - basically only to elder elves and the wizards (who despite looking human, most definitely are not). That's about maybe a couple of dozen people in Middle Earth.

[GunnarGreybeard]

I typically envision Low Fantasy not so much as 'little to no magic' but not so much flashy offensive magic, like Flame Strike, Fireballs, Lightning and such. Stuff that's not going to panic the masses.

[Mask_of_winter]

Agreed. Magic is very far removed from daily life in Tolkien, and only available to a tiny, tiny minority of the population, and not at all to humans - basically only to elder elves and the wizards (who despite looking human, most definitely are not). That's about maybe a couple of dozen people in Middle Earth.
And while Bilbo possesses a few magic items, he wouldn't trade his mithril chainmail for a chainmail +2 (since this is about to be a thing now thanks to Cubicle 7).

[rhammer2]

I'll second this. Weber is a good writer any time, and this series is exceptional.

Definitely, I've enjoyed all his work. His fantasy series, The War God's Own, is also a must read.

- Robert

[Psikerlord]

Low Fantasy for the win!

Especially d20 OGL systems build around low magic.... such as... Low Fantasy Gaming :D .... Free PDF: https://lowfantasygaming.com/

[Galach]

I am very suspect to vote, because in my not that humble opinion, Eberron is the BEST oficial campaign settig ever made.

[Hermundure]

Psikerlord nice link, thank you :-p

[Psikerlord]

Psikerlord nice link, thank you :-p

You're most welcome Hermundure!

[Answulf]

I also prefer Low Fantasy, but forget that - your artwork is fantastic!!!

[Hermundure]

I also prefer Low Fantasy, but forget that - your artwork is fantastic!!!

Thank you for your kind words! :-)

I recently finished my work in illustrating (19 paintings) the revised edition of "Balance Disturbed" - an interesting and well thought out adventure done by LordEntrails (Dan Harlan).

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/180749/Balance-Disturbed-BDC1

Illustrating adventures really keep me away from working on my own adventure but its great fun for me and these orders fit "in between" my usual commissions really well.

[Answulf]

Also, I've already mentioned this to Psikerlord on another forum (he's the author, btw), but a big thumbs up for Low Fantasy Gaming!

https://lowfantasygaming.com/

I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but would like to. I did read the rules thoroughly and it looks like a good system.

Interestingly, the poll is almost a dead heat.

[Hermundure]

Also, I've already mentioned this to Psikerlord on another forum (he's the author, btw), but a big thumbs up for Low Fantasy Gaming!

https://lowfantasygaming.com/

I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but would like to. I did read the rules thoroughly and it looks like a good system.

Interestingly, the poll is almost a dead heat.

As english is not my first language, sometimes I read something and only understand a fractal of it so excuse my silly questions below :-)
What did you mention to Psikerlords? (He posted this link to "LFG" on page 2 or three in here I guess - actually I was starting to read the pdf 2 days ago, so far it looks interesting and I like the artwork there.)

As for the poll, it was informative to me and the setting is worked out already. The artwork is ready also (except for the depiction of a few wide angle-shots on 2 dungeon entrances), and the first adventure story is done 70%.
Its pretty much just balancing some encounters, tieing the loose ends all up and letting a native english speaker proof read the whole thing ;-p

[Answulf]

No worries Hermundure! I just meant that I had already complimented Pskierlord on the game he wrote, Low Fantasy Gaming, on another website.

[Topdecker]

To me, low-fantasy means a number of things...

1. Magic is rare and generally used by the bad guys
2. The 'heroes' are in it for pride & profit, booze & good times - if they do good, it is usually coincidental
3. Tech is usually early iron age
4. Remnants of a fallen evil civilization abound

Having a campaign.... I finally decided to just tell 'stories' that are loosely linked together. I've read way too much Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, I guess, to want to do it any other way