Quote from: Daztur;725432"Actual" or not it is the dumbest definition of high vs. low fantasy I've ever heard. Using setting as the sole determinant of genre without regard to themes, etc. etc. makes no sense.

It's not the sole determinant of genre, which is why other terms like "epic fantasy" or "Arthurian fantasy" or "urban fantasy" exist.  And like it or not, it's the definition that the formal study of English literature has been using for fifty years or more.  There's a perfectly serviceable corpus of terminology and definitions for discussing genre that predates RPGs by decades, if not centuries.

ObOP:  I think that in epic fantasy, races should represent concepts or themes, or possibly mores.  I don't think the EDOs are necessary or even desirable in epic fantasy that's not set in Middle-Earth; their ubiquity is a Tolkien/D&Dism that's become widespread as a result of laziness and myopia on the part of fantasy authors post 1980 or so.

Interestingly, outside of Tolkien, his obvious copiers, and D&D novels, it strikes me that nonhuman races existing at all in a fictional world isn't all that common.  Looking through my library and casual lists online, a slight majority of the epic fantasy seems to be human-only.

Quote from: daniel_ream;725434And like it or not, it's the definition that the formal study of English literature has been using for fifty years or more.

Then perhaps you can find an academic citation for this distinction. Your phrasing back a few posts is very similar to what's in Wikipedia "High Fantasy," but the references there are all at best tertiary sources aimed mainly at educators and written by generalists.

Well, I had a little time and I think the idea traces back to Tymn, Zahorski, and Boyer, in a book and maybe an earlier article from the '70s. But the way it's phrased now (e.g. Wikipedia) seems to be a misunderstanding. I don't have a copy of their writing, however it sounds like they were talking more about a distinction between settings where magic is "normal" and settings where it's supernatural--where the contrast between mundane expectations and magical phenomena make the latter all the more wondrous or frightening.

The best paper I've found online that talks about this is http://www.academia.edu/2058560/The_Fantastical_Experience_The_Relationship_between_History_Fantasy_and_Reality_in_Neil_Gaimans_Neverwhere It's just somebody's MA thesis but I think it gives a broader and more nuanced overview of previous scholarship and criticism.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;725423Perhaps I didn't word it very well.  If you allow half elves and half orcs (two completely different species from humans), then logically you'd also have to allow any mixed-species breed.  human/dwarf, halfling/orc, dwarf/elf, etc.  Half elves and half orcs have become a staple of many fantasy rpgs because...just because it was done that way.  For the most part.  And yet, we don't see half dwarves, halfling/orc or gnoll/elf mixes, etc as playable races in any fantasy rpg I can think of.

I'd say that half-elves and half-orcs are strong archetypes - the cool misunderstood outsider. You go for half-elf if you want the cool outsider to be pretty, and for half-orc if you want monstrous. Of course considering how douchebaggy some D&D elves are, in some settings elves would treat half-elves much like how humans tend to treat half-orcs...

IME players want Elves, only occasionally Dwarves. Only the occasional old-school player wants Halflings. Nobody wants Gnomes.

Half-Orcs are more a 'low fantasy' thing IME, suited to grim & gritty or grim & gonzo settings. I see them a lot in Pathfinder/Golarion.

I kind of admit to freely taking the 'Magic/Wizard/etc/stuff just because' view on a lot of these. I guess I was never the type to question the whys. I just let my brain think of something. So, how is your character's father a giant? Well, his storm giant dad fell for a human bard and he's get a size-altering spell cast on himself whenever they'd hang out in the city for ease. Why can giants breed with humans? Well, doesn't say in the game. I just picture maybe they were closer in genes or something than people think. Someone else might picture pure 'Magic!'. A third person might not even think of it.

I can, however, understand people wanting a bit more of a plausible explanation behind their races. I just never really thought much of it. (Same with not having certain half-breeds. Like, how can humans and elves get together but not humans and gnolls? Could be anything, could be magic, could be 'science', could be whatever. Again, others want more plausible explanations.)

Quote from: Azzy;725469I can, however, understand people wanting a bit more of a plausible explanation behind their races. I just never really thought much of it. (Same with not having certain half-breeds. Like, how can humans and elves get together but not humans and gnolls? Could be anything, could be magic, could be 'science', could be whatever. Again, others want more plausible explanations.)

Well, in Pathfinder and 3.5D&D, they added templates that let you play "half-something" or even weirder things (stack on Undead and Dragon on your PC!)

That gets crazy though. Still, it might create an interesting world.

Of course in my 'D&D' setting the PC races are all human in some sense, either humans to begin with (humans, elves) or created by their magic (Dwarves, halflings, orcs) the end result is interbreeding is possible between them, because of that, they can interbreed producing half-kind (humans, elves, orcs) or somewhat more human versions of their "non-human" side. (dwarves, halflings)

Quote from: Arminius;725449Then perhaps you can find an academic citation for this distinction. Your phrasing back a few posts is very similar to what's in Wikipedia "High Fantasy," but the references there are all at best tertiary sources aimed mainly at educators and written by generalists.

Yes, this too.

Doing a "low fantasy" "secondary world" "high fantasy" "primary world" google search the bulk of the results are restatements of a wikipedia article and talk on RPG forums. Not much academic.

I doubt that lit crit academics would be dumb enough to enshrine such a pointless definition, but maybe they are, I don't know, not my area of expertise.

It really doesn't make much sense at all.

Let's take Conan for example. Is that high fantasy or low fantasy? Well the map looks pretty different from our own, so high fantasy? But some background material says that the world is our own world from before the ice ages. So then it's low fantasy. But if we excise the stuff that says that the Conan stories happened in our world's past that wouldn't change the content of the stories at all but it would presumably change Conan back of high fantasy.

Then we have Middle Earth. Seems archetypical high fantasy but in the Hobbit there are clear references to the Hobbit taking place in the past of our own world. So is Middle Earth low fantasy?

One of the dumbest ways of distinguishing sub-genres I've ever heard of.

I think it makes sense in some, chiefly literary, contexts because some concepts of fantasy broadly include anything that involves magic or the supernatural. So Dracula is fantasy, and so is 100 Years of Solitude. Given that, it was necessary to distinguish the type of fantasy that entails development of entirely imaginary settings where magic is an accepted fact from stories where a major theme is the confrontation between the rational worldview and the inexplicable. Theme is probably the main indicator, with the caveat that the critics probably focused on modern literature. Le Morte D'Artur takes place in a Britain whose relation to the real world was probably not clear to its audience, who likewise weren't working from a rationalist perspective.

As you say, Daztur, analyses of the distinction run into trouble over what exactly constitutes an alternate reality. Harry Potter, Thomas Covenant, Narnia, and Oz take place in worlds connected to our own via some sort of portal. More problematic are alternate histories such as Conan or Tolkien. Then there's the fact that every work of fiction is fictional. (Does the gamer-fiction in Castle Falkenstein take place in Europe or in "Europe"? What about Buffy--California or "California"?) I think the distinction is more useful if it's seen as fundamentally thematic as described above. Even then, "weird" fantasy, with its emphasis on the irrational or supernatural/horrific quality of magic (Conan, again) is arguably "low fantasy" even though it often (Conan) serves the dual purpose of transporting the reader into an alternate reality.

(More in a moment.)

A number of people on the Talk page associated with the Wikipedia entry say they've never heard of this distinction, and although the projected ignorance of the Internet can hardly be underestimated, I'd like to see more examples of this particular high/low breakdown used in academic or professional critical contexts. (Eg writings by Moorcock, LeGuin, or Diana Wynn Jones.) Otherwise I wouldn't call it standard/canonical.

I think it's quite possible that the term "low fantasy" was coined independently, multiple times, as a back-formation from "high fantasy." One academic/literary instance was  Tymn et. al. (or one of their sources), another was in RPG circles. The "high fantasy" term seems more established but I can't guess where it came from. Also, it may have mutated, particularly when (IIRC) Gygax used it to describe D&D and justify some of his design choices.

The academic, litcrit definition of "high fantasy" is indeed "secondary world fantasy". But that is of little use for RPG purposes, the vast majority of fantasy games are set in secondary worlds. Nor is it intuitive from a modern perspective, so I normally ignore it.

I generally think of High Fantasy as Tolkienesque, Paladins & Princesses, Good vs Evil. Often High Magic these days. As opposed to Low Fantasy, grubby, dirty, Game of Thrones stuff. Often low magic.

There was a Dragon article "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy" which used these definitions. It would have got an F grade in English Lit class, but for D&D purposes it made a useful distinction. Original Gygaxian D&D is pretty Low Fantasy - 0e, 1e, Greyhawk, the Wilderlands. Runequest also pretty Low Fantasy.
Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Mystara, 2e AD&D are more High Fantasy.

To me, gnomes AND dwarves AND halflings are redundant: three species filling the good guy "little person" slot. I usually either collapse it into a pairing (e.g., the members of species A who went underground became dwarves; those who stayed aboveground became gnomes; there are no halflings) or a singleton (e.g., if I want a Prydain/Doli feel, I only use gnomes).

Humans of all existing stripes
Humans of nonexistent stripes
Warcraft orcs and goblins
Pathfinder gnomes, tieflings, and aasimar
Lodoss elves
Eberron\Dark Sun halflings and elves
....some new non-boring dwarves...
Samsarans
Thri-Kreen
Nagaji
Nagas
Centaurs
Gearforged
Harpies
Strix
Undine/Oreads/Sylphs/Ifrits
New strange fantastic races never seen before

And no monoculture.

That covers player races...

Quote from: S'mon;725565The academic, litcrit definition of "high fantasy" is indeed "secondary world fantasy". But that is of little use for RPG purposes, the vast majority of fantasy games are set in secondary worlds. Nor is it intuitive from a modern perspective, so I normally ignore it.

I generally think of High Fantasy as Tolkienesque, Paladins & Princesses, Good vs Evil. Often High Magic these days. As opposed to Low Fantasy, grubby, dirty, Game of Thrones stuff. Often low magic.

There was a Dragon article "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy" which used these definitions. It would have got an F grade in English Lit class, but for D&D purposes it made a useful distinction. Original Gygaxian D&D is pretty Low Fantasy - 0e, 1e, Greyhawk, the Wilderlands. Runequest also pretty Low Fantasy.
Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Mystara, 2e AD&D are more High Fantasy.

I see your points and agree I guess.

I gotta admit though that my views on Forgotten Realms is different from that of most; I see it less as an epic good vs evil place and more like a "Lankhmar + Hobbit" mix place if that makes any sense. Admittedly I tend to pretend the place's high level wizards don't exist.

Btw:
Some use the expression "heroic fantasy" for stuff like LotR and Dragonlance; however others use it for stuff like Conan and Lankhmar making it basically a useless term.

Quote from: S'mon;725565The academic, litcrit definition of "high fantasy" is indeed "secondary world fantasy".

I'm curious, not combative, but could you give some actual sources and citations of original academic sources that explicity claim so? Other than the ones on Wikipedia's page?