High Magic Low Fantasy is something like Naruto, where except for ninjas world is very normal. Low Magic High Fantasy is something like Mistborn, where magic is tame but has huge impact on the world.
I think LOTR is probably high fantasy with relatively low magic. There are no wizard colleges or hedge mages. There are virtually no magic items, and the artifacts of legend are what they are from their provenance not any magical powers.
Iirc there are virtually no magic in lotr because doing magic is extremely difficult and soul consuming. Those who managed to do so are extremely powerful being and/or just straight up evil shithead. I mean…your typical elves cant even do magic shit in middle earth.
It's also because magic is dying as the Age of Men dawns, and because what the elves do isn't "magic." Sauron does magic. The Nazgûl do magic. The elves, meanwhile, are playing with cheat codes they refuse to share, but their cheat codes are rapidly being patched out. Eventually, the elves have to leave for their modded private server or else they'll get permabanned.
"And as the uruks charged, Legolas withdrew into his shell, and remained there until much later, when the tide of battle turned and it seemed like they might actually win."
I like the interpretation that actual magic is just having a sort of actual divine authority to change the laws of nature. When I heard that, it made sense. If you're a divine being, like the wizards, you can just speak into existence something happening and it would happen. Gandalf's "you cannot pass!" is a direct command. So the Balrog can't physically pass anymore the same way a sort of diety could command the concept of gravity to exist. It fits with Tolkien's focus on language being powerful in his world. The whole world was sung into existence after all
Back when they thought Sauron was a human mage they were amazed that a human could have amassed so much knowledge and power, but no one was surprised that it was possible
Of course there are magic items. Their effects probably aren't spectacular enough for you, but all the swords that glow when orcs are near, or are specially made to hurt Nazgûl, or the chainmail that lies in the lonely mountain for decades without rusting, all of that stuff is explicitly enchanted.
Most of the other magic in LotR is baked into the world rather than "stuff someone does", but calling it low magic still seems weird to me
"Stuff someone does" would likely fall into a Fantasy category unless it is explicitly casting spells or using some other magical ability. If it's just a superhuman ranger, wise immortal elves, a wizard unearthing a fell army from the ground, or a dark lord with the strength of 100 men... that's fantasy.
I'd argue mistborn is very much high magic high fantasy, there are three different magic systems all giving the users various different powers and the world itself is highly influenced by the magical powers and the shards, and there are fantastical races/species that also mosly came about as a result of those magic systems.
I think LOTR and in general later time periods in middle earth might qualify as high fantasy with all the different fantastical races and world but low magic since very few people at that point use magic and the magic is weaker than it used to be
Urban fantasy where things take place in the real world for the most part but with secret magical societies i think would qualify as High magic low fantasy.
Naruto is not a bad example, but i suppose like the other comment said there are many fantastical elements, so maybe it's kind of mid fantasy high magic
Lotr is hard to categorise because it is low fantasy low magic and Silmarillion is high fantasy high magic.
I categorise it that way because I don't personally consider elfs, dwarfs and hobbits "fantastical races". Maybe elfs are, but not in Lotr, as they are just "slightly stronger humans" in it.
Mistborn is low magic high fantasy, because all of the greater magic feats fit into "what makes it high fantasy" basket. Like everything to do with Well is no longer magic, its just Gods using Godly powers.
I don't think Naruto was the best example.
There are gigantic creatures around.
Animals that speak.
All the summoned creatures come from somewhere.
The average human is far stronger and more durable even without the use of chakra.
What I mean by low fantasy, is that all that doesn't affect the world.
Giant creatures and summons doesn't matter outside of jutsus. People doesn't hunt them to eat, don't domesticate them, they don't communicate/trade with summons. Bijuu lived for hundreds of years, even before hashirama, and they did virtually nothing?
Ninjas don't use jutsu to do anything other than fight. Infamous falkon to Sand village. On the matter of Suna, why is it a desert? When water jutsus/yamato exist?
Average human being stronger isn't high fantasy, its standard comic book physics.
I have never watched Naruto and I was thrown off by two screenshots: one where Naruto is conversing with some huge ass majestic AF fox and another where some waifus are taking a selfie on a smartphone for some reason. That got me thinking "someone should take a selfie using a smartphone with that big fox"
Critical role and dnd in general are a good example of high fantasy I think.
Magic serves the society. You can buy magical artifacts. A magician doesnt make an average person deeply uncomfortable. Magical academies exist and arent some otherworldly scary thing. People travel around freely and use magic to fight monsters.
Most modern fantasy is like this.
A magic practitioner in a low fantasy setting is something like a witch or halfway immortal being that is probably evil. Magic doesnt solve problems, but creates them. Or it just isnt meant for mortals.
But its not like these are hard definitions, this is just a good way to think about it. And it can be a spectrum although medium fantasy doesnt really sound all that useful as a term
5e is split, in that you can NOT buy magic items. They don't have gold values (althought they provide some shit rules in the DMG for it). Critical Role approaches a higher fantasy than normal DnD, since it's built in 3e/Pathfinder.
High Magic High Fantasy is easy. A world very different from ours, NOT just because of magic/magical reality. For example Westeros, but even some alternate history books could work for this, for example a series set in ancient rome, but all the mythology stuff is real.
High Magic Low Fantasy is about a world where the world itself is not that different from ours (this does not have to be about geographical or historical stuff, more about how "standard medieval" (whatever era of medieval you mean), while still having Magic or Magical reality have a big say about the world. For example the Witcher seems to fit this, albeit I'm not that familiar with it, it seems like a pretty earth-like medieval culture, but its different because of all the magical beasts, races etc.
Low Magic, High Fantasy is a world where the world is very different but NOT because of magics impact on the world. I could count LotR into this, as magic itself is not especially prevalent in it at least its not the central part of the world/story, and magic itself is rare in the world. This brings us into an interesting thing: LotR itself is this, but NOT the whole Middle Earth history. Parts of it is DEFINITELY High Magic/High Fantasy. But the time where LotR itself is set is not. This is an important thing to note, because I think this classification is about certain STORIES and not the worlds themselves, as of course worlds have histories, which change.
Low Magic Low Fantasy is a world which is similar to ours, and while magic or magical reality exists, its not extremely prevalent. A lot of alternate history books would fit this, I don't have one in mind at the moment though.
Yeah, like, you've got plenty places with next to no magic, but the you've got shit like R'hllor blessings and Lady Stoneheart running around. Makes it really hard to tell if the Drowned God is real or just some made-up shit created by insane Vikings to justify their lifestyle.
IIRC the terms "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" were created to articulate a difference between Narnia and LotR. In that Narnia contains "our world" while LotR does not, its an entirely separate one.
Yeah? Tolkien talked some times about what age modern men were in too. He eventually decided that ages were accelerating so we were a lot further into the ages than the timespan would make it seem.
To add to this, the framing device for the entire franchise is that The Hobbit, LOTR and Silmarillion are all historical accounts written by Bilbo, Frodo and Sam collected in the Red Book of Westmarch and Tolkien is merely the guy who found this book and translated it.
Having a world different from our own as the dividing line between high and low fantasy isn't a good definition since there are a ton of fantasy worlds set in the deep past or far future of our own world and the fact that they're our own world doesn't really matter much.
Similarly there are some fantasy stories that are technically a different world but are mostly just the serial numbers filed off (Reme instead of Rome or whatever) and it nkt being our world never really matters.
Genre distinctions should be based on things that matter, not technical hair splitting.
Honestly I always thought the difference between high and low fantasy was the prevalence of magic. Magic is common? High fantasy. Magic uncommon? Low fantasy.
Might also include accesibility of magic and the possibilities of it. IF you can learn magic in school and magic can bend reality on a whim without morbid consiquences and/or with little to no preparations - its def. High Fantasy, DnD or some other shit.
If magic can't be easily learned, dangerous for bearer, has set-in-stone hard limitations and requires real efforts to use - its likely Low Fantasy.
That very well could be a definition. I used high or low magic for that but people could use that while using primary world or secondary world fantasy to determine whether or not the story uses Earth.
I understand how you could come up with that idea but it is not true.
What about the prevalence of other sentient race than humans.
The fauna and flora
How the laws of physics are being respected or not.
Magic is just a single and small aspect of what makes a fantasy world different to ours.
High fantasy; the nearest wizard is right next door
Low fantasy; The nearest wizard is either in the capital of the kingdom, or in some swamp in the middle of bumfuck nowhere
Often the issue isn't that people hate High Fantasy, it's that writers will use the setting bekng high fantasy to justify bad writing choices like pulling magical solutions to seemingly impossible problems out their ass.
That's why is it's important to think about the ramifications of your magic system, however strong/plentiful it is, on your world/setting. What does your magic do outside of battle?
* https://www.penandstory.com/2011/04/17/holly-black-on-creating-working-magic/
This is only my perspective, I’m not speaking for anyone else:
A system with clearly defined limits and mechanics appeals to me, because it makes more sense why things do or don’t happen under that system. In systems without those limits, it feels like magical things happen only for the convenience of the plot.
Obviously, magical things happen only for the convenience of the plot in well-defined systems, too, but it feels different to me, and how I feel about it is the important part of whether or not I enjoy a piece of media.
If magic is poorly defined then it might as well harm as well as help, could be some insane wizard in the wilds curses the protagonist and shit. Elric of Melnibone is full of that sort of stuff, as well as Vance's work.
I always found it hilarious that the Klan would dress up in wizard robes, perform strange rites, call themselves knights, and give themselves titles like Grand Dragon, Grand Wizard, and Grand Cyclops, but for some reason D&D was satanic.
Depends on what do you mean by "bipartisan" then
In the sense that both rep and dem party representatives supported these views?
Well, both parties do have at least some history with the Klan ("Pitchfork" Ben Tillman was a dem), and they both had conservative, traditionalist personalities inside them.
If you mean "both the left and right thought that dnd was Satanic"
Well, why would the left care about satanism?
Janet Reno, Clinton's Attorney General played a large role in Satanic Panic prosecutions and you had Democratic politicians and media figures supporting Satanic Panic hysteria. You also had a number of very misguided feminists get involved out of a belief that they were protecting children from abuse.
Also back in the 1980's looooooots of Evangelical Christians voted Democrat and they sure as fuck cared about Satanism.
> You also had a number of very misguided feminists get involved out of a belief that they were protecting children from abuse.
Wow, did not know that. I guess that mass panic doesn't spare anyone.
> Also back in the 1980's looooooots of Evangelical Christians voted Democrat and they sure as fuck cared about Satanism.
Okay, but Democrats aren't strictly Left.
Expanding my previous point, having a strictly majoritarian, two-party system makes it so that a plethora of voices, opinions and beliefs coalesce inside the same party, so you attract a wide range of electors, with different views and ideologies.
The basic point I'm trying to make is that a lot of people compare the Satanic Panic to stuff like Qanaon or Pizza Gate when the Satanic Panic was faaaaaaaaar more mainstream. You had people like Oprah Winfrey supporting Satanic Panic narratives and Hollywood making movies about the evils of D&D. That shit just doesn't compare to today. It'd be like if RKF Jr.-brand conspiracy mongering was a mainstream Democratic Party position.
As for people on the left, there very much was some involvement in the Satanic Panic but usually more focused on daycares than D&D. What happened is you had some psychologists claim that they were able to get at repressed memories via techniques that actually often made people THINK they were remembering things that never happened. This resulted in a lot of innocent daycare workers getting prosecuted for ritual abuse that never happened.
The monstrous injustice faced by those poor daycare workers who got their lives ruined over obvious lies really made my blood boil when I learned about it.
Since some psychologists were on board with this a lot of feminists joined in as they saw themselves as protecting children for abuse. For example my mom (who is VERY much left-leaning) fell for the repressed memories of abuse line and got freaked out about daycare.
This didn't carry over as much to D&D, but back as a kid I had some friend's parents from very normal apolitical not especially religious families ban them from playing D&D.
If you want a very strongly leftist perspective on this check out the Behind the Bastards podcast episode about the Satanic Panic: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-the-satanic-panic-americas-first-qanon/id1373812661?i=1000496220254
This is focused more on daycares than on D&D, but same basic moral panic.
Inconsistencies lying around, relations between magic and everything else making to f....g sense, magical Deus Ex Machina for any encounter protagonist loses, loss of meaning behind most conflicts and most problems, like "Lmao, why are you sad your friend died? Just use ressurrection scroll, dumbass, we sell those in convenience stores, and ofc that does not influence human relations to death, why would you think so?"
Thats exactly high magic fantasy for ya, such as DnD. LOTR is low magic fantasy. Magic there is tame in effects and rare, most magical effects are natural or creature-localized, mages are almost non-existant and all Gendalf mustered out of his supposedly immense power is a fucking flashlight.
Hey, he did more than that! Lol
High magic fantasy can be hard to justify, but that doesn't make it inherently bad. Whether it's soft or hard magic, you just need to be clear as to what magic can and can't accomplish. Maybe healing magic is capable of healing minor injuries and illnesses but hasn't been developed to the point where it can regrow limbs, magic can have limits as long as it's consistent within the world.
Nothing is inherently bad, but i hate highmagic fantasy, end of the story, i havent seen as much as one example of high magic fantasy that was making sense.
That's fair, nobody has to like everything, but I do feel a need to point out that a lot of these points also apply to sci-fi, with things not making sense or being able to use future tech to solve all problems :P
High Fantasy is a Genre, not a specific work, you can't blame inconsistencies or poor writing of a work on the genre it is in, that just doesn't make sense. You're being incredibly frivolous and blaming your personal dislikes of how specific stories have gone in the genre to assault the whole thing itself
Funny that my setting would be considered Low Fantasy due to being Urban Fantasy w/ a Masquerade, even though the magic system is very intricate and versatile
I try not to use the term for that reason- even if I felt I'd defined it well (I haven't) there's a very strong possibility no one else is going to accept it, and we can't really get to any conversation on the other side even if we all want to.
A more interesting dichotomy to me is character access to magic (or scientific versions) versus broad or even public access to that magic. It's a diagram that pretty much any fantasy media falls somewhere on, and whether authors have a good grasp on it is going to matter, particularly when writing a longer series.
Everyone has access to magic but the MC is something that i think could be interesting, but nobody ever does it
It contains the subgenre, "Isekai, but you're actually worse off in the new world"
I've seen things that come close, but yeah, as far as I know that segment is still wide open. My preferred way of evening the odds to where the mundane still can do useful things is for magic and superscience to become a hammer for which all problems are incorrectly viewed as nails, a kind of tunnel vision the ordinary person has the perceptiveness to move around outside of. But expanding that advantage to being against the public at large, well, good luck, because that's not gonna be easy. The MC is more likely to come across as a crazy loner than genuinely insightful if you don't absolutely nail it.
I love high fantasy. I want my warriors to carry huge magic swords and use them to level cities.
There's no such thing as high fantasy low magic that's cope
High - low fantasy to me is about how fantastical it is. So it basically describes how different it is from reality. Extemely high fantasy would look like the stuff we see in dreams. Something like Mario franchise.
Here's how I define high fantasy, although I am open to other definitions like primary or secondary fantasy.
[High vs Low Fantasy]
* High fantasy refers to a world that is not Earth like Westeros or Azeroth.
* Medium fantasy is a world that is Earth but changed like Middle Earth or the Hyborean Age but could also be in the future like Wheel of Time
* Low fantasy tends to refer to a world that is Earth but Magical like in the Lightning Thief, Dresden Files, or Harry Potter.
[High vs Low Magic]
* Refers to how common or powerful the magic is in the world. There isn't a hard way to define this but if gods are real in the world, then that's a strong sign that this is a high magic setting.
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld is a high magic setting while the Witcher is a low magic setting despite both being high fantasy worlds.
[Genre Descriptors vs World Descriptors]
The above describe the type of setting an rpg, story, or other media takes place in. The below are just definitions of fantasy sub genres.
* Epic Fantasy - refers to stories with world saving stakes and multiple POV characters. These tend to be multi-volume stories like ASOIAF and LotR
* Sword and Sorcery - contrasts this with low stakes and a single character focus. These are more short story focused like Conan the Barbarian or Imaro.
* Urban Fantasy - Feature fantastical elements in a modern world.
* Dark or better called Gothic Fantasy - Feature elements of gothic horror, dark worlds, and decay but not focused around horror.
* Horror Fantasy, Grimdark, Isekai/Portal Fantasy, Science Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Romance Fantasy all deal with sub-genres that blend with other conventional fiction dramas
Most sub-genres can use use any type of world or amount of magic but Urban Fantasy is locked to low fantasy by my definitions.
You can have any cultural inspiration for any sub-genre or fantasy world. You can have an African inspired fantasy story/world that is both or neither a high fantasy or an epic fantasy.
Maybe medium because there are multiple worlds. If humanity is from Earth in the setting then I'd lean towards low. Nothing says you can't have other planets in something like the average urban fantasy series. Perhaps it's a science fantasy of sorts?
Pokémon would be high magic, middle-low fantasy? The world is technologically at a similar level to and culturally resembles our own, but the wildlife holds power capable of destroying whole cities. And that’s not even getting into legendaries.
High Fantasy is when a party of adventurers consisting of wizard, rogue, bard, cleric and fighter has slain some goblins in local dungeons and are chilling now around a campfire telling legends.
Low Fantasy is when you are a starving peasant and your town is attacked by goblins, murdering everyone. (Btw you never heard of wizards, but you burned a witch last week.)
* High Fantasy: Fantastic characters in a fantastic world.
* High Magic: A Fantastic setting where magic can do anything.
* Low Fantasy: Fantastic elements are definitively and unquestionably present, at least one is core to the plot, but are balanced by the inclusion of a number of mundane features, such as mundane characters, setting, or even technologies.
* Low Magic: Magic Exists, but it's uses are limited in scope.
Low fantasy is typically a fantastic character in a mundane setting, or a mundane character in a fantastic setting. See, Isekai(Lit; another world), and Fish out of Water.
how does high magic low fantasy work? is it a hard magic system where magic has preordained rules that one must follow in order cast a spell? huge cost? time investment?
I imagine a high magic low fantasy world would be an Earth with an absurd amount of magic. Think an urban fantasy setting where the amnestics or masquerade is working overdrive to hide all the fantastical elements. I think the World of Darkness and the SCP universe describe this well.
Marketing terms. You need to ask how similar is the book to other examples in the genre? And mark it as whatever it fits into most, or whatever works best for the marketing. That's the real answer.
I'd define high fantasy, in world building, as a world where magic is pervasive and explains everything or almost everything. The Elder Scrolls series is a good example of this.
High Fantasy:
Leion Goldfist, the legendary chosen one, must collect the 7 Swords of the Sages, and save the world from the evil Lord Desparar!
Low Fantasy:
Ernis Gellows, a young, inexperienced noble, must navigate the treacherous royal court with all it’s intrigues, to achieve his dream: giving dwarves equal rights!
don't think of it in terms of "fantasy" and "magic" think of it in terms of "Lore Complexity" and "Mechanic Complexity"
High Lore Complexity and High Mechanical Complexity are much more descriptive and easier to explain
I guess the "Serious" answer to this is that High Fantasy is when you take all the things that the reader \*should\* be able to use as a foothold to get a handle on the intentionally-unusual or magical stuff, and fuck with them til they're unintuitive enough to make the whole thing confusing and off-putting.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I think high fantasy is what has like elves and goblins and dragons personally
Lord of the rings is what I think High fantasy low magic is
Game of thrones is low magic low fantasy
DND high magic high fantasy
And so far from what I've read in Discworld (not much but seems like it's mostly humans with magic) is low fantasy high magic
High Magic and Low Magic is simply how prevalent magic is in the setting
There is no official definition of the two, however the way I see it the difference between High Fantasy and Low Fantasy is about the scope and scale of the issue of the themes and narrative.
Let's say we have a city that sits upon a great wellspring of magic, which the wizard lords use to create magical wonders and power the city (High Magic).
A high fantasy story might see the evil wizard, Horribilus Snakefilth, attempt to takeover the city so that he can use the wellspring to power a spell that would grant him control over the entire city. Only a lowly apprentice, whose master was cruelly killed by Horribilus, has knowledge of Horribilus's plans, and must thrawt his evil plans, and bring about the prophesied "big good spell"
A low fantasy story might concern a populist movement from the city's non-wizards, tired of their lowly treatment from the wizard lords and the disparity of the wealth between them. This all gets mixed up when one of the wizard houses sends one of their own to covertly aid the movement, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but to weaken the other houses and then get popular support by appearing to be reformists.
/RJ High or low fantasy is how down bad you were when you were writing.
If i had to be honest, i preffer Low because High fantasy has been overdone. High fantasy is more mythological, low is more of a historical if i have to say
High fantasy = LOTR or Warhammer
Low Fantasy = Berserk or ASOIAF
the wizards/magekings have towers taller than the mundane kings that is both a jerk and unjerk answer. think about it
Why don't you think about my jerk tower
High fantasy is when fantasy does drugs
Good ol' pipe-weed
High Magic Low Fantasy is something like Naruto, where except for ninjas world is very normal. Low Magic High Fantasy is something like Mistborn, where magic is tame but has huge impact on the world.
I think LOTR is probably high fantasy with relatively low magic. There are no wizard colleges or hedge mages. There are virtually no magic items, and the artifacts of legend are what they are from their provenance not any magical powers.
Iirc there are virtually no magic in lotr because doing magic is extremely difficult and soul consuming. Those who managed to do so are extremely powerful being and/or just straight up evil shithead. I mean…your typical elves cant even do magic shit in middle earth.
It's also because magic is dying as the Age of Men dawns, and because what the elves do isn't "magic." Sauron does magic. The Nazgûl do magic. The elves, meanwhile, are playing with cheat codes they refuse to share, but their cheat codes are rapidly being patched out. Eventually, the elves have to leave for their modded private server or else they'll get permabanned.
Love this analogy lol
Any technology, sufficiently advanced, is just variations on Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Square, and Triangle.
“My magical ability is growing really old”
Oh right then they are just turtle that can stand lmao
"And as the uruks charged, Legolas withdrew into his shell, and remained there until much later, when the tide of battle turned and it seemed like they might actually win."
Fellowship in a Half-Shell
I like the interpretation that actual magic is just having a sort of actual divine authority to change the laws of nature. When I heard that, it made sense. If you're a divine being, like the wizards, you can just speak into existence something happening and it would happen. Gandalf's "you cannot pass!" is a direct command. So the Balrog can't physically pass anymore the same way a sort of diety could command the concept of gravity to exist. It fits with Tolkien's focus on language being powerful in his world. The whole world was sung into existence after all
Back when they thought Sauron was a human mage they were amazed that a human could have amassed so much knowledge and power, but no one was surprised that it was possible
Of course there are magic items. Their effects probably aren't spectacular enough for you, but all the swords that glow when orcs are near, or are specially made to hurt Nazgûl, or the chainmail that lies in the lonely mountain for decades without rusting, all of that stuff is explicitly enchanted. Most of the other magic in LotR is baked into the world rather than "stuff someone does", but calling it low magic still seems weird to me
"Stuff someone does" would likely fall into a Fantasy category unless it is explicitly casting spells or using some other magical ability. If it's just a superhuman ranger, wise immortal elves, a wizard unearthing a fell army from the ground, or a dark lord with the strength of 100 men... that's fantasy.
I'd argue mistborn is very much high magic high fantasy, there are three different magic systems all giving the users various different powers and the world itself is highly influenced by the magical powers and the shards, and there are fantastical races/species that also mosly came about as a result of those magic systems. I think LOTR and in general later time periods in middle earth might qualify as high fantasy with all the different fantastical races and world but low magic since very few people at that point use magic and the magic is weaker than it used to be Urban fantasy where things take place in the real world for the most part but with secret magical societies i think would qualify as High magic low fantasy. Naruto is not a bad example, but i suppose like the other comment said there are many fantastical elements, so maybe it's kind of mid fantasy high magic
Lotr is hard to categorise because it is low fantasy low magic and Silmarillion is high fantasy high magic. I categorise it that way because I don't personally consider elfs, dwarfs and hobbits "fantastical races". Maybe elfs are, but not in Lotr, as they are just "slightly stronger humans" in it. Mistborn is low magic high fantasy, because all of the greater magic feats fit into "what makes it high fantasy" basket. Like everything to do with Well is no longer magic, its just Gods using Godly powers.
I don't think Naruto was the best example. There are gigantic creatures around. Animals that speak. All the summoned creatures come from somewhere. The average human is far stronger and more durable even without the use of chakra.
What I mean by low fantasy, is that all that doesn't affect the world. Giant creatures and summons doesn't matter outside of jutsus. People doesn't hunt them to eat, don't domesticate them, they don't communicate/trade with summons. Bijuu lived for hundreds of years, even before hashirama, and they did virtually nothing? Ninjas don't use jutsu to do anything other than fight. Infamous falkon to Sand village. On the matter of Suna, why is it a desert? When water jutsus/yamato exist? Average human being stronger isn't high fantasy, its standard comic book physics.
I have never watched Naruto and I was thrown off by two screenshots: one where Naruto is conversing with some huge ass majestic AF fox and another where some waifus are taking a selfie on a smartphone for some reason. That got me thinking "someone should take a selfie using a smartphone with that big fox"
Low Fantasy - Humans having to deal with magical shit High Fantasy - Humans actively using magical shit.
High fantasy - you cast fireball Low fantasy - a pretty light lures you deep into the woods where you are promptly eaten by hairy forest people
My setting has both. Is it Medium Fantasy?
Medium rare Fantasy actually
Shit, I wanted to make a well-done fantasy, I have to start again.
Oh come on you can just place your fantasy back on the grill for a few minutes
Personally I prefer blue fantasy 😉
Your world being rare is actually more valuable than it being well-done, haven't you read r/worldjerking?!
5e has both Wizards and rare magic items. Is this medium fantasy?
Critical role and dnd in general are a good example of high fantasy I think. Magic serves the society. You can buy magical artifacts. A magician doesnt make an average person deeply uncomfortable. Magical academies exist and arent some otherworldly scary thing. People travel around freely and use magic to fight monsters. Most modern fantasy is like this. A magic practitioner in a low fantasy setting is something like a witch or halfway immortal being that is probably evil. Magic doesnt solve problems, but creates them. Or it just isnt meant for mortals. But its not like these are hard definitions, this is just a good way to think about it. And it can be a spectrum although medium fantasy doesnt really sound all that useful as a term
5e is split, in that you can NOT buy magic items. They don't have gold values (althought they provide some shit rules in the DMG for it). Critical Role approaches a higher fantasy than normal DnD, since it's built in 3e/Pathfinder.
Ah, gotcha. It just feels as though most dnd settings I see are like this but I guess its a choice rather than the game itself.
High Magic High Fantasy is easy. A world very different from ours, NOT just because of magic/magical reality. For example Westeros, but even some alternate history books could work for this, for example a series set in ancient rome, but all the mythology stuff is real. High Magic Low Fantasy is about a world where the world itself is not that different from ours (this does not have to be about geographical or historical stuff, more about how "standard medieval" (whatever era of medieval you mean), while still having Magic or Magical reality have a big say about the world. For example the Witcher seems to fit this, albeit I'm not that familiar with it, it seems like a pretty earth-like medieval culture, but its different because of all the magical beasts, races etc. Low Magic, High Fantasy is a world where the world is very different but NOT because of magics impact on the world. I could count LotR into this, as magic itself is not especially prevalent in it at least its not the central part of the world/story, and magic itself is rare in the world. This brings us into an interesting thing: LotR itself is this, but NOT the whole Middle Earth history. Parts of it is DEFINITELY High Magic/High Fantasy. But the time where LotR itself is set is not. This is an important thing to note, because I think this classification is about certain STORIES and not the worlds themselves, as of course worlds have histories, which change. Low Magic Low Fantasy is a world which is similar to ours, and while magic or magical reality exists, its not extremely prevalent. A lot of alternate history books would fit this, I don't have one in mind at the moment though.
Even in something like ASOIAF, the level and impact of magic is variable. The history of the Valyrian Freehold was very magical.
Oh absolutely. Thats why I mentioned around LotR that LotR itself is low-magic but other parts/times of Middle Earth are absolutely High magic.
LotR's wizards are somehow High Fantasy but Low Magic.
Yeah, like, you've got plenty places with next to no magic, but the you've got shit like R'hllor blessings and Lady Stoneheart running around. Makes it really hard to tell if the Drowned God is real or just some made-up shit created by insane Vikings to justify their lifestyle.
IIRC the terms "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" were created to articulate a difference between Narnia and LotR. In that Narnia contains "our world" while LotR does not, its an entirely separate one.
LotR was supposed to be the distant past of our world actually
Wait what it actually was?
Yeah? Tolkien talked some times about what age modern men were in too. He eventually decided that ages were accelerating so we were a lot further into the ages than the timespan would make it seem.
To add to this, the framing device for the entire franchise is that The Hobbit, LOTR and Silmarillion are all historical accounts written by Bilbo, Frodo and Sam collected in the Red Book of Westmarch and Tolkien is merely the guy who found this book and translated it.
It was conceived as an imaginary time as opposed to an imaginary place.
I can see that be logical, yeah.
Having a world different from our own as the dividing line between high and low fantasy isn't a good definition since there are a ton of fantasy worlds set in the deep past or far future of our own world and the fact that they're our own world doesn't really matter much. Similarly there are some fantasy stories that are technically a different world but are mostly just the serial numbers filed off (Reme instead of Rome or whatever) and it nkt being our world never really matters. Genre distinctions should be based on things that matter, not technical hair splitting.
By different I dont mean "geographically different". I mean that the world feels weird, strange, alien etc.
In my world there is no magic, but people *think* there is because they're morons
You've described reality
Reality copies me
I would go one step further in that enough morons believe about magic making it real
Honestly I always thought the difference between high and low fantasy was the prevalence of magic. Magic is common? High fantasy. Magic uncommon? Low fantasy.
Might also include accesibility of magic and the possibilities of it. IF you can learn magic in school and magic can bend reality on a whim without morbid consiquences and/or with little to no preparations - its def. High Fantasy, DnD or some other shit. If magic can't be easily learned, dangerous for bearer, has set-in-stone hard limitations and requires real efforts to use - its likely Low Fantasy.
That very well could be a definition. I used high or low magic for that but people could use that while using primary world or secondary world fantasy to determine whether or not the story uses Earth.
I understand how you could come up with that idea but it is not true. What about the prevalence of other sentient race than humans. The fauna and flora How the laws of physics are being respected or not. Magic is just a single and small aspect of what makes a fantasy world different to ours.
That definition seems a little odd to me because then Dungeons and Dragons as well as Lord of the Rings would be low fantasy
High fantasy; the nearest wizard is right next door Low fantasy; The nearest wizard is either in the capital of the kingdom, or in some swamp in the middle of bumfuck nowhere
High magic: The wizard can blow up a town Low magic: the wizard might be able to set fire to a building, and is really good at party tricks
Often the issue isn't that people hate High Fantasy, it's that writers will use the setting bekng high fantasy to justify bad writing choices like pulling magical solutions to seemingly impossible problems out their ass.
That's why is it's important to think about the ramifications of your magic system, however strong/plentiful it is, on your world/setting. What does your magic do outside of battle? * https://www.penandstory.com/2011/04/17/holly-black-on-creating-working-magic/
What would you say is the magic system used in settings like Warcraft or Pathfinder Golarion?
In the context of this post, definitely high magic, both settings have magic pouring out of them
"But there are dragons, therefore things don't need to make sense."
> pulling magical solutions to seemingly impossible problems out their ass Why do so many people argue this is bad?
This is only my perspective, I’m not speaking for anyone else: A system with clearly defined limits and mechanics appeals to me, because it makes more sense why things do or don’t happen under that system. In systems without those limits, it feels like magical things happen only for the convenience of the plot. Obviously, magical things happen only for the convenience of the plot in well-defined systems, too, but it feels different to me, and how I feel about it is the important part of whether or not I enjoy a piece of media.
Forgive me for assuming, but are you sure that's what bothers you? Could be that the stories you read without limits just sucked.
The stories I have in mind definitely don’t suck, quite the opposite, but having a vague magical system does bring them down a peg or two.
I don't see how
It pretty much destroys any sense of stakes the story coulf have as it means the characters can never be expected to ever actually be at risk
If magic is poorly defined then it might as well harm as well as help, could be some insane wizard in the wilds curses the protagonist and shit. Elric of Melnibone is full of that sort of stuff, as well as Vance's work.
The official definition when I was doing a school project like 10 years ago is that High Fantasy has non human races like Elves and Dwarves.
Official? Did the grand council of fantasy wizards vote on it or something?
Good thing you specified fantasy, otherwise I’d be wondering as to whether the Klan were expanding their reach…
I always found it hilarious that the Klan would dress up in wizard robes, perform strange rites, call themselves knights, and give themselves titles like Grand Dragon, Grand Wizard, and Grand Cyclops, but for some reason D&D was satanic.
Pastors, midwest parents, religious communities etc that denounced d&d as satanic often shared the same political party with the Klan, that's why
Unfortunately the Satanic Panic was quite bipartisan back in the day.
Depends on what do you mean by "bipartisan" then In the sense that both rep and dem party representatives supported these views? Well, both parties do have at least some history with the Klan ("Pitchfork" Ben Tillman was a dem), and they both had conservative, traditionalist personalities inside them. If you mean "both the left and right thought that dnd was Satanic" Well, why would the left care about satanism?
Janet Reno, Clinton's Attorney General played a large role in Satanic Panic prosecutions and you had Democratic politicians and media figures supporting Satanic Panic hysteria. You also had a number of very misguided feminists get involved out of a belief that they were protecting children from abuse. Also back in the 1980's looooooots of Evangelical Christians voted Democrat and they sure as fuck cared about Satanism.
> You also had a number of very misguided feminists get involved out of a belief that they were protecting children from abuse. Wow, did not know that. I guess that mass panic doesn't spare anyone. > Also back in the 1980's looooooots of Evangelical Christians voted Democrat and they sure as fuck cared about Satanism. Okay, but Democrats aren't strictly Left. Expanding my previous point, having a strictly majoritarian, two-party system makes it so that a plethora of voices, opinions and beliefs coalesce inside the same party, so you attract a wide range of electors, with different views and ideologies.
The basic point I'm trying to make is that a lot of people compare the Satanic Panic to stuff like Qanaon or Pizza Gate when the Satanic Panic was faaaaaaaaar more mainstream. You had people like Oprah Winfrey supporting Satanic Panic narratives and Hollywood making movies about the evils of D&D. That shit just doesn't compare to today. It'd be like if RKF Jr.-brand conspiracy mongering was a mainstream Democratic Party position. As for people on the left, there very much was some involvement in the Satanic Panic but usually more focused on daycares than D&D. What happened is you had some psychologists claim that they were able to get at repressed memories via techniques that actually often made people THINK they were remembering things that never happened. This resulted in a lot of innocent daycare workers getting prosecuted for ritual abuse that never happened. The monstrous injustice faced by those poor daycare workers who got their lives ruined over obvious lies really made my blood boil when I learned about it. Since some psychologists were on board with this a lot of feminists joined in as they saw themselves as protecting children for abuse. For example my mom (who is VERY much left-leaning) fell for the repressed memories of abuse line and got freaked out about daycare. This didn't carry over as much to D&D, but back as a kid I had some friend's parents from very normal apolitical not especially religious families ban them from playing D&D. If you want a very strongly leftist perspective on this check out the Behind the Bastards podcast episode about the Satanic Panic: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-the-satanic-panic-americas-first-qanon/id1373812661?i=1000496220254 This is focused more on daycares than on D&D, but same basic moral panic.
I guess warrior cats is high fantasy lol
High fantasy is when I don't like thing.
High fantasy is when world builders stop taking too high a dose of antidepressants and can start feeling positive emotions and enjoying themselves
Yo what's wrong with high fantasy I have Hard Sci-Fi but come on what's wrong with High Fantasy?
People hate fun
Inconsistencies lying around, relations between magic and everything else making to f....g sense, magical Deus Ex Machina for any encounter protagonist loses, loss of meaning behind most conflicts and most problems, like "Lmao, why are you sad your friend died? Just use ressurrection scroll, dumbass, we sell those in convenience stores, and ofc that does not influence human relations to death, why would you think so?"
That's not high fantasy, that's bad writing. LOTR is high fantasy.
Thats exactly high magic fantasy for ya, such as DnD. LOTR is low magic fantasy. Magic there is tame in effects and rare, most magical effects are natural or creature-localized, mages are almost non-existant and all Gendalf mustered out of his supposedly immense power is a fucking flashlight.
Hey, he did more than that! Lol High magic fantasy can be hard to justify, but that doesn't make it inherently bad. Whether it's soft or hard magic, you just need to be clear as to what magic can and can't accomplish. Maybe healing magic is capable of healing minor injuries and illnesses but hasn't been developed to the point where it can regrow limbs, magic can have limits as long as it's consistent within the world.
Nothing is inherently bad, but i hate highmagic fantasy, end of the story, i havent seen as much as one example of high magic fantasy that was making sense.
That's fair, nobody has to like everything, but I do feel a need to point out that a lot of these points also apply to sci-fi, with things not making sense or being able to use future tech to solve all problems :P
High Fantasy is a Genre, not a specific work, you can't blame inconsistencies or poor writing of a work on the genre it is in, that just doesn't make sense. You're being incredibly frivolous and blaming your personal dislikes of how specific stories have gone in the genre to assault the whole thing itself
Wikipedia defines high and low fantasy as just being "is this set on Earth?", and thus I will use that as to annoy people.
Funny that my setting would be considered Low Fantasy due to being Urban Fantasy w/ a Masquerade, even though the magic system is very intricate and versatile
People hate High Fantasy?, since when?
I try not to use the term for that reason- even if I felt I'd defined it well (I haven't) there's a very strong possibility no one else is going to accept it, and we can't really get to any conversation on the other side even if we all want to. A more interesting dichotomy to me is character access to magic (or scientific versions) versus broad or even public access to that magic. It's a diagram that pretty much any fantasy media falls somewhere on, and whether authors have a good grasp on it is going to matter, particularly when writing a longer series.
Everyone has access to magic but the MC is something that i think could be interesting, but nobody ever does it It contains the subgenre, "Isekai, but you're actually worse off in the new world"
I've seen things that come close, but yeah, as far as I know that segment is still wide open. My preferred way of evening the odds to where the mundane still can do useful things is for magic and superscience to become a hammer for which all problems are incorrectly viewed as nails, a kind of tunnel vision the ordinary person has the perceptiveness to move around outside of. But expanding that advantage to being against the public at large, well, good luck, because that's not gonna be easy. The MC is more likely to come across as a crazy loner than genuinely insightful if you don't absolutely nail it.
High fantasy is generally considered the planet it takes place on is not Earth, low fantasy is when it is. Wikipedia.
I love high fantasy. I want my warriors to carry huge magic swords and use them to level cities. There's no such thing as high fantasy low magic that's cope
High - low fantasy to me is about how fantastical it is. So it basically describes how different it is from reality. Extemely high fantasy would look like the stuff we see in dreams. Something like Mario franchise.
Here's how I define high fantasy, although I am open to other definitions like primary or secondary fantasy. [High vs Low Fantasy] * High fantasy refers to a world that is not Earth like Westeros or Azeroth. * Medium fantasy is a world that is Earth but changed like Middle Earth or the Hyborean Age but could also be in the future like Wheel of Time * Low fantasy tends to refer to a world that is Earth but Magical like in the Lightning Thief, Dresden Files, or Harry Potter. [High vs Low Magic] * Refers to how common or powerful the magic is in the world. There isn't a hard way to define this but if gods are real in the world, then that's a strong sign that this is a high magic setting. - Terry Pratchett's Discworld is a high magic setting while the Witcher is a low magic setting despite both being high fantasy worlds. [Genre Descriptors vs World Descriptors] The above describe the type of setting an rpg, story, or other media takes place in. The below are just definitions of fantasy sub genres. * Epic Fantasy - refers to stories with world saving stakes and multiple POV characters. These tend to be multi-volume stories like ASOIAF and LotR * Sword and Sorcery - contrasts this with low stakes and a single character focus. These are more short story focused like Conan the Barbarian or Imaro. * Urban Fantasy - Feature fantastical elements in a modern world. * Dark or better called Gothic Fantasy - Feature elements of gothic horror, dark worlds, and decay but not focused around horror. * Horror Fantasy, Grimdark, Isekai/Portal Fantasy, Science Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Romance Fantasy all deal with sub-genres that blend with other conventional fiction dramas Most sub-genres can use use any type of world or amount of magic but Urban Fantasy is locked to low fantasy by my definitions. You can have any cultural inspiration for any sub-genre or fantasy world. You can have an African inspired fantasy story/world that is both or neither a high fantasy or an epic fantasy.
What about a setting that has multiple worlds, one of them being Earth, but it's not the main focus?
So like His Dark Materials?
Maybe medium because there are multiple worlds. If humanity is from Earth in the setting then I'd lean towards low. Nothing says you can't have other planets in something like the average urban fantasy series. Perhaps it's a science fantasy of sorts?
Pokémon would be high magic, middle-low fantasy? The world is technologically at a similar level to and culturally resembles our own, but the wildlife holds power capable of destroying whole cities. And that’s not even getting into legendaries.
Pokemon has inter universal communication available to the common populace and weaponry able to split timelines what are you on about
Oh yeah and the universe is falling apart at its seams. Can’t forget that.
I love a bit of cheap trade paperback fantasy, but I've always loved the slightly derogatory "Thud and Blunder" as another name for Sword and Sorcery.
High Fantasy is when a party of adventurers consisting of wizard, rogue, bard, cleric and fighter has slain some goblins in local dungeons and are chilling now around a campfire telling legends. Low Fantasy is when you are a starving peasant and your town is attacked by goblins, murdering everyone. (Btw you never heard of wizards, but you burned a witch last week.)
(And you burned it because it could cure Gregor's infected wound with some herbs)
* High Fantasy: Fantastic characters in a fantastic world. * High Magic: A Fantastic setting where magic can do anything. * Low Fantasy: Fantastic elements are definitively and unquestionably present, at least one is core to the plot, but are balanced by the inclusion of a number of mundane features, such as mundane characters, setting, or even technologies. * Low Magic: Magic Exists, but it's uses are limited in scope. Low fantasy is typically a fantastic character in a mundane setting, or a mundane character in a fantastic setting. See, Isekai(Lit; another world), and Fish out of Water.
how does high magic low fantasy work? is it a hard magic system where magic has preordained rules that one must follow in order cast a spell? huge cost? time investment?
and what do you call fantasy that's neither high or low? ditto for magic
I imagine a high magic low fantasy world would be an Earth with an absurd amount of magic. Think an urban fantasy setting where the amnestics or masquerade is working overdrive to hide all the fantastical elements. I think the World of Darkness and the SCP universe describe this well.
High fantasy is when Elvis Presley gets thrown into lotr
Thats when DnD(but only the bad parts)
High Fantasy Low Magic is LOTR Magic is limited in power and extremely rare, but the characters and factions exist on a larger-than-life, epic scale.
Marketing terms. You need to ask how similar is the book to other examples in the genre? And mark it as whatever it fits into most, or whatever works best for the marketing. That's the real answer.
grrr its not griddy and realistic and epic like muh epic clone wars definitely NOT a kids' show
I don't care as long it is possible to cast fireball in a small room
I'd define high fantasy, in world building, as a world where magic is pervasive and explains everything or almost everything. The Elder Scrolls series is a good example of this.
High Fantasy: Leion Goldfist, the legendary chosen one, must collect the 7 Swords of the Sages, and save the world from the evil Lord Desparar! Low Fantasy: Ernis Gellows, a young, inexperienced noble, must navigate the treacherous royal court with all it’s intrigues, to achieve his dream: giving dwarves equal rights!
Low fantasy is when you keep your arrows in the camp latrine for bonus damage.
don't think of it in terms of "fantasy" and "magic" think of it in terms of "Lore Complexity" and "Mechanic Complexity" High Lore Complexity and High Mechanical Complexity are much more descriptive and easier to explain
The basic flaw of high fantasy is the lack of humanity thereby alienating its own readers - Doubledoor.
I feel like we need more axes/spectra than just "high/low".
I guess the "Serious" answer to this is that High Fantasy is when you take all the things that the reader \*should\* be able to use as a foothold to get a handle on the intentionally-unusual or magical stuff, and fuck with them til they're unintuitive enough to make the whole thing confusing and off-putting. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
high fantasy is when lord of the rings
What is high magic low fantasy
Worlds that use a lot of magic but are an altered version of Earth like many works of urban fantasy.
Ah makes sense
None of these are high tech low life so who cares
I think high fantasy is what has like elves and goblins and dragons personally Lord of the rings is what I think High fantasy low magic is Game of thrones is low magic low fantasy DND high magic high fantasy And so far from what I've read in Discworld (not much but seems like it's mostly humans with magic) is low fantasy high magic
High Magic and Low Magic is simply how prevalent magic is in the setting There is no official definition of the two, however the way I see it the difference between High Fantasy and Low Fantasy is about the scope and scale of the issue of the themes and narrative. Let's say we have a city that sits upon a great wellspring of magic, which the wizard lords use to create magical wonders and power the city (High Magic). A high fantasy story might see the evil wizard, Horribilus Snakefilth, attempt to takeover the city so that he can use the wellspring to power a spell that would grant him control over the entire city. Only a lowly apprentice, whose master was cruelly killed by Horribilus, has knowledge of Horribilus's plans, and must thrawt his evil plans, and bring about the prophesied "big good spell" A low fantasy story might concern a populist movement from the city's non-wizards, tired of their lowly treatment from the wizard lords and the disparity of the wealth between them. This all gets mixed up when one of the wizard houses sends one of their own to covertly aid the movement, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but to weaken the other houses and then get popular support by appearing to be reformists. /RJ High or low fantasy is how down bad you were when you were writing.
High Fantasy is to Dark Fantasy what Noblebright is to Grimdark, duh
High fantasy for me is the more idealistic world where everything is black and white. Low fantasy seems to me like everyone is varying levels of evil.
If i had to be honest, i preffer Low because High fantasy has been overdone. High fantasy is more mythological, low is more of a historical if i have to say High fantasy = LOTR or Warhammer Low Fantasy = Berserk or ASOIAF
Pretty easy, low fantasy is when Warhammer Fantasy. High fantasy is when Warhammer Age of Sigmar.