From my experience talking to actual gamers in the real world, "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" aren't terms that are never used.

From my experience talking to gamers online, "low fantasy" generally means "a setting with fantasy elements that I like" and "high fantasy" generally means "a setting with fantasy elements that I like but also fantasy elements that I don't like".

Regardless of their original or literary meanings, in online discussions "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" are no more useful than "old school" and "new school" when it comes to describing things. For most people they're just a convenient way of drawing a subjective line in the sand between "things I like" and "things I don't like" and then pretending that the line is somehow objective because the you've given either side of it a name.

Quote from: Haffrung;785922When the terms were coined with regards to literature, they meant epic heroic  fantasy (Tolkien) versus gritty unheroic fantasy (Lieber, Howard). As the term has come to be used more by gamers, it evolved to high-magic versus low-magic.

Personally, I find the original definition more useful. To me, the tone of novel (or a game) is more important than the mechanics. As as aside, I hate it when people analyze the 'magic system' in a fantasy novel. It's a fucking novel, not a game. May as well analyze the 'agricultural system' in Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

http://www.litcharts.com/lit/tess-of-the-d-urbervilles/chapter-1
there is a bunch of agrecultural analysis in there largely in respect to Angel's experiences in Brazil where he tries to use traditional English farmign traditions but finds they fail rather abysmally.

Often they analyse the magic system to see if it can be turned into a game.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;786000From my experience talking to actual gamers in the real world, "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" aren't terms that are never used.

From my experience talking to gamers online, "low fantasy" generally means "a setting with fantasy elements that I like" and "high fantasy" generally means "a setting with fantasy elements that I like but also fantasy elements that I don't like".

Regardless of their original or literary meanings, in online discussions "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" are no more useful than "old school" and "new school" when it comes to describing things. For most people they're just a convenient way of drawing a subjective line in the sand between "things I like" and "things I don't like" and then pretending that the line is somehow objective because the you've given either side of it a name.

disagree.

I have players that like High fantasy. They want that stuff in their games.
In fact one guy I used to play with said my games were too "muddy" he wanted games that were more ... then stood up with hands on hips staring off into the far distance smiling...

When I run ad-libbed games (where the players pick genre, setting, style, core mechanic, stats etc by voting at the start of the session) High Fantasy comes up occassionally generally tied to cinematic, heroic, epic and 4 colour.

I think that getting that granular list of
i. combat be realistic/cinematic/fantastic (fantastic is  Sucker Punch or Final fantasy)
ii. Magic should be rare/uncommon/ubiquitous
iii. stakes should be local/national/global
iv. morality and ethics should be B&W/nuanced/grey
v. PCs should be normal/heroic/superheroic

is more useful but most people would say of those rare magic, local stakes grey morality leads to "low fantasy" whereas ubiquitous magic, fantastic combat and superheroic PCs is "High fantasy" of course lots of shades in between cos its a spectrum.

In found a topic about this subject on the despised rpg.net. Holy cows it's 92 pages long. Is that forum so busy? Anyway here is the link.

Reverting to Old Grognard mode for a second, back in the day the whole debate can be summed up as Thieves World versus Lord of the Rings. The Dragaeran series by Stephen Brust was another well known "low fantasy" series.

Flashforward to the present and out of Old Grognard mode. The only truth is that any combination of tropes will be made at some point. Luck, taste, and circumstances will sometimes conspire to produce a bunch of folks writing or promoting a particular combination. For example Cyberpunk back in the 80s/90s.

If you want something practical out of what is otherwise an academic debate, you need to talk about what worked for you either as a referee or a player.

For me my fantasy tends towards the Thieves World/Burst variety. Not quite to level of everything is a moral shade of gray. There is true good and true evil in my campaigns and setting.

In general this is because I focus on immersion and sandbox play. When you approach a campaign like this local level details tend to shine brighter while the grand issues of the day are just part of a dim backdrop. The grand issues only become important when they impinge on the character's lives.

Sometimes that where my campaigns dwell for their duration. Characters busy living their own little adventurous lives divorced from the great events that surrounds them.

Sometimes it switches, usually because a character or characters accept a destiny or decide that a grand event is their problem as well.  An example of this is a Swords and Wizardry campaign I ran where the character started out as making their way through the world pretty much focus on acquiring enough treasure to carve an estate of their own.

One character was a half-Viridian Fighter (a Viridan is a demonic race) who really hated his Viridian Father. Another was a Montebank basically a low class magic-user that part of the criminal underworld. The last was a full Magic-user belonging to the Order of Thoth.

Their adventures was set in the ruins of the Viridistan Empire currently in the midst of a grand civil war. Throughout the campaign they also became a aware of the Army of the One lead by supposedly divine leader named Horus who desired to purify the Wilderlands.

Basically the players tried to ignore the civil war along with any other news that was going on in favor of poking around the various ruins that dotted the ruins. The focus on increasing material wealth, knowledge, and building a secure home. Including dealing with street gangs in the City of Viridstan.

In the middle of the campaign, the Half-Viridian Fighter got some news about his father and elected to pursue. Along the way the group pieced enough about the guy's father to realize he was fairlly high ranking Viridian with caches of wealth.

Ultimately their greed lead them to be involved in a epic time travel adventure where the half-viridian fighter learned that the sole purpose of him being born was so that he could travel to the past to free his father from  magical confinement.

However epic that adventure was it was purely personal in scope. The group aquired enough wealth to finish their plans for their homes. At which point they learned enough about Horus and the civil war to realize that the group needs to involve themselves or risk losing everything they gained.

After that the campaign took an epic high fantasy turn. Horus was ultimately brought down by the group and cast into the abyss to be imprisoned. The group gave the faction they supported a decisive edge in the civil war and brought down one of the major opponent.

Was the campaign low fantasy or high fantasy? My answer is that depended on what the players were doing. I will say that I deliberately designed the Majestic Wilderlands make this easy while keeping everything a single setting.

I do this by a careful selection of tropes. For example Horus was a fallen god but opted, for various in-game reasons, to present himself as a prophet and only selectively used miracles to build up his Army of the One. By and large most of his power stemmed from being a master at playing to people's emotions, wants, and fears.

So when the player first deal with the situation it low fantasy style dealing with a group of religous fanatics. Further reinforced the the fact that even among hardcore fanatics there are variations due to temperament, desires, and willpower.

Then as the player work closer to the central focus of the movement, Horus, things become more high fantasy culminating in the realization they are dealing with a fallen god and acquiring the major mojo need to take such a being out.

There is no right or wrong way of doing this. As long as you pay attention to why are you adding the things you want. In my experience the problem result when things are just thrown together without further thought or consideration.

Quote from: jibbajibba;786007disagree.

I have players that like High fantasy. They want that stuff in their games.
In fact one guy I used to play with said my games were too "muddy" he wanted games that were more ... then stood up with hands on hips staring off into the far distance smiling...

I wasn't saying that people don't like that kind of thing - I like that kind of thing myself and so do my group.

I was saying that in my experience the sort of people who do like the more gonzo stuff don't describe it as "High Fantasy". That term is usually used by those who don't like it in order to distinguish it from the "Low Fantasy" that they do like.

QuoteI think that getting that granular list of
i. combat be realistic/cinematic/fantastic (fantastic is  Sucker Punch or Final fantasy)
ii. Magic should be rare/uncommon/ubiquitous
iii. stakes should be local/national/global
iv. morality and ethics should be B&W/nuanced/grey
v. PCs should be normal/heroic/superheroic

is more useful but most people would say of those rare magic, local stakes grey morality leads to "low fantasy" whereas ubiquitous magic, fantastic combat and superheroic PCs is "High fantasy" of course lots of shades in between cos its a spectrum.

Yeah. Individual measures like "Low/High Magic" or "Black & White morality / shades of grey" are more useful as terms than a single "Low Fantasy / High Fantasy" categorisation.

Quote from: Simlasa;785923High Fantasy seemed cleaner and prettier... closer to fairy tales and more optimistic... Disneyesque.

Not to pick on you or anything...but...

Fairytales Are bright and clean and pretty now?

Even my own country's folktales, wich tend to have happy endings, involve people getting tortured due to losing a pedantry contest, cannibal trolls everywhere, evil fey pretty much everywhere, heroes who Get rich by tricking trolls into comitting suicide or just ambushing them, and the only thing standing between the less heroic dude and the Horrors outside his cabin the nisse (gnome/farm gnome), who's a lot like what you Get if you mix a Watchmen/Miller type "Hero" and a mafia Movie gangster and will kill you if he doesn't Get his porridge.

Irish folktales Are much the same except fewer trolls and more fey and the fey Are basically Gods.

Brothers Grimm (German folktales) is generally speaking worse.

...but then I've often seen low fantasy referred to as fairytale-esque.
There's a certain kind of fantasy with low-powered and/or subtle and/or folkloresque Magic everywhere and ditto supernatural beings, that's a lot like fairytales. Stuff like Patricia A. mcPhillip's books say.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;786060I wasn't saying that people don't like that kind of thing - I like that kind of thing myself and so do my group.

But you object to people using a word for it because it helps them pinpoint their disagreement with you.

Old story in RPG discussion.

BTW, I've been convinced by this conversation that the literary definitions/usages are less important than the RPG usages, when it comes to RPG discussion. I guess that isn't a major revelation, but people ought to be aware when they use the terms that they're using RPG-specific language that doesn't necessarily apply to lit. (Although it might, given the convergence of fandoms and the direction of influence these days.)

Quote from: Arminius;786079But you object to people using a word for it because it helps them pinpoint their disagreement with you.

Old story in RPG discussion.

Nope. Sorry. Didn't say that.

Don't put words in my mouth.

Well since even authors do not use the term consistently.

Most commonly I've seen published fantasy authors use the term to refer to general magic level. How pervasive and flashy magic use and fantastical creatures are.

Lord of the Rings for example has been described as low fantasy or mid fantasy since the actual story has actually not alot of the really fantastical to it by somes reckoning. Its predominantly man-to-man sword battles and massed combat. Gandalf himself casts all of about four or five spells throughout the whole series.

Others disagree and cite the presence of elves, orcs, wraiths and such as clearly high fantasy.

Others apply it very differently as has been sited elsewhere in this thread. Such as Lord of the Rings being low fantasy as it is set on Earth and John Carter being High fantasy because it is not. etc.

Make of it what you will.

QuoteDon't put words in my mouth.

Like "when people say 'high fantasy' it really means 'stuff I don't like'"?

Quote from: Omega;786092Well since even authors do not use the term consistently.

Most commonly I've seen published fantasy authors use the term to refer to general magic level. How pervasive and flashy magic use and fantastical creatures are.

Lord of the Rings for example has been described as low fantasy or mid fantasy since the actual story has actually not alot of the really fantastical to it by somes reckoning. Its predominantly man-to-man sword battles and massed combat. Gandalf himself casts all of about four or five spells throughout the whole series.

Others disagree and cite the presence of elves, orcs, wraiths and such as clearly high fantasy.

Others apply it very differently as has been sited elsewhere in this thread. Such as Lord of the Rings being low fantasy as it is set on Earth and John Carter being High fantasy because it is not. etc.

Make of it what you will.

LotR is obviously not low fantasy, not to any definition. It's high fantasy because the scope is epic. And it's high fantasy because middle earth isn't our earth. Not even a little. D&D is high fantasy according to literature and Ars Magica isn't, because Ars Magica is set in a "realistic" version of the middle ages around 1200 plus some additional magic and secret societies.

I mean it isn't that hard. It's pretty clear that the Star Wars universe isn't our world and that Assasins Creed is our world plus fictional assassins and some time traveling.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;786095because middle earth isn't our earth. Not even a little.

I'm sure Professor Tolkien would be interested to hear that.

Quote from: Arminius;786093Like "when people say 'high fantasy' it really means 'stuff I don't like'"?

There's a big difference between "in my experience people generally do X" and "you are doing X".

One's a statement about general experiences which may or may not apply to any given individual. The other is a direct accusation. I did the first. You did the second.

Well, I'll get to the nub of it: I do think that high & low fantasy are easily intelligible terms when gamers use them. There may be some imprecision but most of the characteristics have been covered in this thread, and if someone says "high fantasy" you can be quite sure they're referring to a game/setting that has a mix of the following:

Magic is common, to the point that its effects are often incorporated into the setting's economy, culture, military science, etc.
Magic is often powerful.
Characters are often quite a bit larger than life.
There are often campaign-level stakes in the form of a struggle against evil, which tends to shape most individual adventures, leading to the form of a quest.
The cultural representation is a pastiche of Western Europe circa 1100-1400.

Not all need necessarily be present but when someone says "high" you've got a fair jumping off point before drilling deeper as suggested upthread.