There is absolutely no reason not to run low magic, low fantasy

Because sometimes you just want to play some weird shit or have a place run by seven-foot fire-spitting dragonmen.
Plus it makes you think: if all this magic and stuff is the norm, exactly what the hell is going to shake up the setting?

Because I run sci-fi, not fantasy.

The better to cater to my tastes

>>43769629
Because fuck you, I do what I want with my setting.

More accurately, a lot of what me and my players wanted added to the setting required magic to be more common. It isn't quite the scale where everyone and their mother knows a spell or two but a village having a level 5 or so druid or something wouldn't be unheard of

Because opinion and preference vary from person to person and your attempt at objectivity is just a lame excuse to try and force your ideas on other people.

>>43769629
Define "low magic" and "high magic"
Define "low fantasy" and "high fantasy"

Explain where pop culture examples such as the Witcher, Tolkien, or GRRM fit in there.

If you can do that you'll succeed where others have failed and have a possible discussion.

>>43769629
Because I've seen plenty of examples that contradict your claim.

>>43769629

By that logic, Oblivion was better than Morrowind.

>>43769806
I liked Oblivion more than Morrowind, because the interface was so much nicer. Morroblivion best mod ever.

As a player, if I hear the words 'low-magic campaign', my next words are 'NOPE!' I've heard that used to justify not letting the players have nice things (no matter how much sense it would make) way too many times. Moreover a lot of the DMs who've done it can't maintain any sort of internal consistency. The 'low magic campaign' question is a nice litmus test, a quick way to weed out games you're probably not going to want to play in if you game like me.

>>43769744
Not OP but I'm going to have a crack at this anyway, just cause.

Low magic - a setting in which magic is rare, wizards might be feared or treated with awe, or perhaps people in the setting don't even believe magic exists. Perhaps only a select few are capable of doing magic, or perhaps it's hidden in secrecy, but for the most part this setting functions without magic.

High magic - Magic is going to be a part of almost every persons life in some way or another, even if it is only indirect. Whether or not magic exists is not in question, it is well known and has had a fundamental impact on social happenings, sorcerers are likely commonplace in armies.

Low fantasy - This setting is brutal, cold, and probably wouldn't be a fun place to live. Wars likely rage, and people die on the streets. Fantastical creatures and races like dragons and elves are usually either used sparingly or non-existent. This is a more realistic take on the fantasy setting.

High fantasy - This is a world setting where the amazing is ordinary. Real life issues like poverty usually take a back seat, and many intelligent species like elves and dwarfs likely exist. There are many magical creatures such as dragons and fairies, and the entire world is stuffed with different creatures, ancient ruins, and stuff for players to explore. This is a more lighthearted take on the fantasy setting.

I've never played any of the games you mentioned, but from what I've seen of it, the Witcher would probably be low fantasy. I'm unsure of the magic though.

Some games I do know about though:

Dark souls
>Low fantasy, high magic
World of Warcraft
>High fantasy, high magic
The Elder Scrolls
>High fantasy, high magic

and this is not exactly a fantasy setting but I was struggling to come up with an example for a low magic game so
Bloodborne
>Low fantasy, low magic

>>43770620
You're conflating high fantasy with bright and low fantasy with dark.

>>43770690
am I? That's just how I've always imagined them to be, so I could be wrong. I wasn't aware there was such a thing as bright and dark fantasy.

>>43770620
how the fuck is dark souls low fantasy? Did you miss literally every enemy being magical/fantastical in some way?

>>43770724
like the other person pointed out, I mistook low fantasy for dark fantasy.

>>43770690
>>43770701
This raises the question of what bright low fantasy would look like, and what dark high fantasy would look like.

Dark high fantasy's actually pretty easy to figure out; Dark Souls probably falls under it, since it's a series that revolves around high-minded philosophical issues and sweeps details like survival needs under the rug by making everyone undead. I'd say the Elric saga also falls under dark high fantasy, since it takes place in a world defined by the clashing of two equally malevolent metaphysical forces. So does Warhammer, for obvious reasons.

Bright low fantasy's a little trickier. Usually, when people write low fantasy, the purpose is to inject cynicism into their setting. Any ideas for what that could look like? I'm thinking of maybe something similar in tone to The Goonies, with a bit of a stronger sense of magic realism. You know, small-scale adventures driven by practical concerns like whether the protagonists get to keep their home, in which they triumph by quick thinking and just a dash of luck, and by never losing hope. 19th-century boys' adventure fiction is probably a good inspiration.

>>43771577
>Bright low fantasy's a little trickier.

Studio Ghibli.

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Well I think high magic, high fantasy should be common. Stop preventing the hypercrisis from happening, you bastard. I will find you and I will lay a curse of lethargy upon you.

>>43769643
That's more of a problem and less of a perk though.

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>>43769629
I agree that low magic low fantasy is superior if only for one reason: high level wizards are extremely powerful, right? If they are common and they have entire communities, academies and whatnot, then why do kings still exist? If wizards are so powerful, a magocracy is the only kind of government that makes sense.

If the number of wizards is low, and the number of worldshattering wizards even lower, then kings still have their place. Wizards would be rare but even low-level ones would be considered a military asset and the high level ones would be the stuff of legends. Perhaps there are still magic academies around but instead of classes you just enroll for (and seriously, why wouldn't fucking everybody enroll?) they're more akin to Professor Xavier's academy for gifted children: taking in only those with extraordinary talent and perhaps actively seeking them out. Maybe kings would sponsor them as, like I've already said, even low level mages have their worth in a low magic setting.

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What if.... Ok... Guys listen here!
Alright? What if, now this may sound crazy, but bear with me.
What if, correct me if I am wrong here, but... What if we all ran what we enjoyed and found fun?
I mean, aren't we playing RPGs as a way to have fun?

>>43772667
No.
Like... NO!
That's stupid!
What would we uselessly argue about then?

>>43772561

Thank you, well put.

>>43772667

Shut the fuck up. Stupid fucking dog. Thinks he knows shit.

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>>43772731
You could always argue about how D&D combat is superior to other systems

>>43769744
Tolkien is definetly high fantasy, albeit with low magic.

Witcher is kinda inbetween

GoT is low fantasy, there may be dragons and some degree of magic, but it´s all very rare.

>>43771577
Just make a setting where magic is rare but mostly helpful. Approach the setting as if you were making historic fiction with a romantic inclination: nobility is about honor and duty not opulence and oppression, commoners are comfortable albeit humble and magic doesn't drive people to witch-hunts.

I've tried to run a few WFRP games because that's what everyone else around here runs, and I've had problems with running this low magic setting because it seems like nothing can't be done without sounding redundant:
>characters are dirt peasants and can't do anything remotely "fun" in the traditional sense, it's all just running away and hiding or getting killed in round 1
>said dirt peasants will get wrecked by a group of bandits, so the best they can do is some rats or beggars, and there's no readily available spellcasting or magic items to make combat interesting
>all supernatural elements seem out of place
>playing intrigue and politics as WFRP seems geared towards is difficult to do with 0 XP dirt peasants that the game encourages you to randomize character class for

I don't get low magic worlds. Or at least WFRP.

>>43772823
You failed to define a single thing.

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>>43772667

>>43772840
Low fantasy/magic works best when you consider real-life problems like infection and starvation. Then getting trapped in dank catacombs might actually inspire dread.

>>43772840
You are playing it wrong. Give the characters easier enemies for start (Goblins, Skaven) or just make weaker bandits.

Don´t follow the rules blindly, give more xp so the characters can level up faster and do more stuff.

some other Warhammer RPGs work simmilarly (Dark heresy, especialy Only war). If you follow the rulebooks blindly , you end up getting killed all the time

>>43772561
>high level wizards are extremely powerful, right? If they are common and they have entire communities, academies and whatnot, then why do kings still exist?
Perhaps high level warrior-kings are also extremely powerful.

>>43772845
Okay

I think it´s really quite simple

High Fantasy - commonplace non-human races and magic


Low Fantasy - rare or nonexistent non-human races and magic

>>43769629
Because you're just some guy on the internet who shitposts with animu images and obvious bait topics.

>Why are you not doing this?

Because high magic settings are less common that low magic and you people are crusading against an enemy that you've already beaten.

I don't know why some people on /tg/ seem to think everyone is running high octane weeaboo magic fests when dark and gritty Game of Thrones ripoffs are the current popular fantasy flavor.

>>43772917
So "no magic, only humans" is low fantasy?

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>>43772561
The World of Oz is run by Witches.

It is also a shit Murrican fantasy world, which I find rather, well, shit.

No correlation.

>>43772942
I suppose when its situated in a completely made-up world it´s still considered fantasy, no?

>>43772942
Not quite. GoT is low fantasy but it has both magic and fantastical creatures. It's just that most people in setting probably won't see these often, maybe never during their wholes lives.

A lot of their problems aren't even fantastical: they are generally more concerned with food, disease, crime and war than dragons and wizards.

>>43772910
That's a possible solution, but that also needs a setting where high level mundane warriors can match or even outmatch high level casters. Perhaps this is the case in other RPGs, but I don't believe this to be the case in D&D. High level casters in D&D have a distinct edge.

>>43772561
>If wizards are so powerful, a magocracy is the only kind of government that makes sense.
Because most truly powerful wizards are generally depicted as lonely hermits that only care about furthering their magical research. Not exactly the best military leaders or political specialists.

Also, martials in high fantasy settings are often not inferior to wizards, so there's that.

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OP I love chinese cartoons where magic can't solve everything and mundane characters can triumph with their wits.

But sometimes, you just want over-the-top power blasting and planet punching.

>>43772889
>>43772897
You still can't play it like your typical, "social" hack and slash that my group enjoys, though. Or at least I can't imagine it.

>>43769629
If you can't get the feeling of a high fantasy setting across properly and it becomes 'stale and everyday', that strikes me more as a problem with your writing than an inherent flaw in the design.

>>43773212
Magic and magical creatures WILL become stale and everyday if they are commonplace in your setting.

There is no avoiding this.

>>43769629
I'm planning on doing so at a later date.
Right now, however, it's funny, because the high magic level of the setting is exactly what allows the BBEG to drive it to ruin so quickly.

>>43772977
By maximalistix definition:

>Fantasy: A story told wthin any system of rules

As long as everything goes by in-universe rules and you don't pull stuff out of your ass, it can becalled fantasy. It's just kida redundant when we have genres like Sci Fi, historix drama, etc.

>>43773255
Apparently you don't know how speculative fiction works.

You take the impossible for granted and expolre all the possibilities that opens up.
When you have magic stuff be really common, that's gonna create a really weird world.

Things get stale when you don't put any thought into your setting and so it just becomes the same collection of tropes you already have in 95% of other mindless fantasy.

>>43769629
By running low magic low fantasy you make the entire world fucking boring. I don't want to listen to your monologues about dirt farming.

I want fantasy in my fantasy. If I wanted something else I'd something something like urban fantasy, where low magic actually fits.

>>43773269
That's more commonly called fiction.

>>43773366
Well, it's a rather pedantic distinction for a big part of fiction that doesn't really have an English word of it's own so it's lumped together with fantasy.
And it's just one definition that tries to catch every possibillity.

>>43773318
>that's gonna create a really weird world.

This is the killer. 99% of the players want a familiar world they can shoehorn their characters into.

>>43769629
Magic is a stand-in for technology that doesn't require me to get rid of the swords and armor and lets scientists also be living tesla coils.

>>43772561
Governments are not simply a matter of rule by the strongest, it's a lot more complex than that. Even in feudal societies, which are fairly militaristic in focus, the king is rarely the mightiest warrior in the realm. Magocracy is certainly a possibility (especially if magical ability is inheritable -- a magic-using bloodline would make for a pretty persuasive claim of a divine right to rule), but it's equally possible that the mages of a country could serve a non-mage king as trusted vassals and courtiers.

To say nothing of the fact that high magic settings don't necessarily need to be 3.5-style caster supremacy fests; you can just as easily have high-powered non-mage warriors who can go toe-to-toe with the wizards just fine.

TL;DR, your assessment is based on all kinds of flawed assumptions.

>>43773473
Well, if that's what the players want. The thing about interactive media is that the players also create the world and to do so they, they need to have knowledge of it.

That's the strength of books: They can just go on and ramble about any part that seems important, and quite easily cost-wise.

>>43773126
It's because DnD doesn't give martials many fantastical powers. Else they'd be accused of being weeaboo. Make your martial more like Cu Chullain and they'd do a much better job of matching threats.

>>43773566
>Governments are not simply a matter of rule by the strongest, it's a lot more complex than that. Even in feudal societies, which are fairly militaristic in focus, the king is rarely the mightiest warrior in the realm.
I thought you might have something for a moment, but this was just dumb. Having the most power doesn't mean you're the best warrior.

>>43772946
Pretty sure Oz was originally just meant to be a muckraker poking at the Robber Barons and their exploitation of the lower class and a political system filled with loopholes that allowed them to do what they wanted, and not meant to be taken as just fantasy.

>>43773659
Hence why a magocracy wouldn't be the only viable option for a low magic setting.

Mages could just as likely be masters of the political game as they are they're own power, or they could be reclusive hermits that couldn't tell the difference from a prince to a pauper.

A government would most likely be first formed out of necessity to lead a group of people, with more and more layers added as the society gets more complex. New governments will have a king, or an elder to decide everything, while older ones will have councils or senates that debate the subject endlessly before deciding.

>>43773659
Nor does it mean you're the best magician. Power in the sense relevant for holding positions of leadership is not dependent on your own personal ability to do things on your own, but on your ability to convine others to support you. And there's a lot more to getting people to support you than simply being the scariest guy around.

Unless you mean to suggest that magocracies are inevitable because the wizards will use shit like Charm spells or even fate-warping stuff like Wish en masse to secure their influence, saying "high magic wizards are crazy strong, therefore magocracy is the only reasonable form of government for high-magic settings" is every bit as silly as saying the king is always the strongest warrior. Because people don't support leaders simply on the basis if who can kick the most ass.

>>43769629
Narrow minded much, OP? Go play Planescape: Torment. Seriously everyone who hates on fantasy that's way too high needs to play that game. That also includes WHFB guys hating on AOS for being higher fantasy than WHFB. Both low and high fantasy are great provided one knows what each offers and can use that to their potential.

>>43773858
>Planescape
Overhyped setting, garbage premise, "power of belief" is bullshit that sounds cool but goes nowhere, everything is too alien but then somehow becomes boring because it becomes everyday.

>>43773882
Sounds like a fat load of shit opinions.

>>43773909
To put it in the words of someone more eloquent than me.

https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/43654121/#43655230

>The entirety of Planscape is predicated on a single concept: the reality is formed by belief, not the other way around. Which is a really interesting and quirky assumption for a while, untill you realize it's a dead end and does not really lead to that interesting scenarios - instead, it tends to end up in a whole bunch of contradictions and plot-holes.

>>43773255
Everyday, yes.

Stale? Not at all. Just because anything CAN happen, does not mean you will run out of things to do and shit to see.

>>43773937
Someone who is a better writer than you does not validate your opinion. No matter how much you fluff it up with pretty words and arrogance, a bad opinion is a bad opinion. Even if you sat here and argued that it's not 'bad', you can't change that it's an opinion.

>>43773937

This is still just a lot of empty options, since the quoted anon doesn't really explain any of his stances.

For fuck's sake, he doesn't even mention specifics on what's reaching a dead end. Is it a dead in for character concepts? Environments? Creatures? Magic? Factions? Gods?

>>43773937

Why would you link your own post?

Like honestly, I nearly thought it wasn't you, and I was getting ready to dive into a big fat internet post, but no. It's literally just a two-sentence opinion piece that you linked to for some reason, as if it's outstanding, memorable, or worthy of mention.

The literal only reason I can think of that you would actually remember such a trivial post is if you yourself wrote it.

>>43769744
The witcher is particularly interesting because it is a high fantasy and high magic world that keeps a dark and gritty tone and feel throughout.

But it is still a world where ecosystems can be defined by how well the human population lives with the local monstrosities like griffons or trolls, and where leaving your dead out invites terrible necrophages. All the same someone who hates you a lot can cause a physical curse to come down on your family, and god forbid you kill an emotionally unstable person.

>>43773858
le strawman face Carnac

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>>43771577
Dinotopia is low fantasy low magic. And it noblebright out the wazoo.

Another thing people need to remember is cool/big concept stuff can still exist in low fantasy and low magic.

For example what is the difference between historical fiction and low fantasy?

>>43772917
What about low fantasy/high magic?

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>>43773654
>It's because DnD doesn't give martials many fantastical powers. Else they'd be accused of being weeaboo.
So? I don't get why D&D is so afraid and why its fans are so critical. When you have wizards and clerics that can literally warp time, turn into dragons, summon a horde of angels to do their bidding and call on their gods to perform literal miracles, being able to swing around a pointy stick really hard is useless. To keep up, the martials NEED to go full weeaboo. They NEED to be able to teleport behind a wizard, cut him to a million pieces before he can even react, and respectfully tip their visors as they inform the enemy that this was indeed nothing personnel.

I don't understand why going full weeaboo is seen as a bad thing, considering how stupidly high power D&D gets at higher levels. If you don't like it, you should be playing a lower powered setting. As it stands right now, martial classes in D&D are just the guys who can punch really, really hard... in a universe full of D.C. superheroes.

Inb4 One Punch Man

>>43775077
It's simply tradition. Even if it would be a good idea to change it, they're stuck in their ways.

>>43775077
wizards had a ton of restrictions, hard counters, poor saving throws, etc. in early editions. 3.x was when they decided that martials shouldn't have the best saving throws in the game by a mile for some reason.

Caster imbalance got worse as the editions progressed which led to more weeaboo fighters to compensate when the game has always fallen apart mechanically at high levels anyway.

>>43774325
>Dinotopia is low fantasy low magic.
Except when its cyberpunk Atlantis time.

So what do you call a setting where there are non humans, albeit in a somewhat side role, but still numerous enough to be a commonly known and not too extremely rarely met phenomenon, with the same going for mythical creatures?
Note that neither these races nor these creatures are really supernatural in nature just different from what we would find on good old earth.
Actual supernatural phenomenon like magic and its wielders are extremely rare but also exceedingly powerful, however also run on a heavy toll to the user.
Many inhabitants of the world have never met or witnessed a mage, but there are of course common stories.
A mage is theoretically able to destroy whole armies, but at the same time will exhaust himself heavily or even kill himself in doing so. At the same time he is just as vulnerable to a dagger or arrow as anyone.

Is this still low fantasy? Is it already high fantasy? I would suppose it is low magic in regards to that.

>>43769629
In the sense that both low and high magic fantasy settings can work, yes

Im a huge fan of low fantasy, medium magic settings. I want mages to exist, and to hold the same amount of social utility and standing as blacksmiths or other skilled craftsmen.

>>43769629
The point of high fantasy is not to have people wonder in awe at the magic of it. Magic being mundane, everyday stuff is the entire point of high fantasy... "Oh, it's just another magic thing." is exactly what you want people to be saying in a high fantasy setting.

>>43776781
Blacksmiths were basically outcasts, though. In a time where money didn't mean a lot without a noble title, they were on the edge of the village or city, doing vital work but not getting any real amount of respect themselves.

The reason to run high-fantasy is that you do not want the fantasy to be special or one-of-a-kind, you want to play in a world where it's normal, and where the PCs can take it for granted and count on it being there, and come up with totally gonzo schemes and strategies and life plans that rely on the fantasy being there, only to be foiled and have to match wits with villains and adversaries who have access to crazy fantasy stuff of their own and are just as inventive as the PCs.

High fantasy is closer to a modern setting than a mythic setting. You basically can get the same tools that your opponents can, because nothing is unique, and it makes you outmaneuver them in other ways. That's not wrong, OP. Don't be silly.

>>43776960
It's possible to have high fantasy where there's a tier of magic and power above what's common or 'known'.

>low magic
So you don't actualy want magic in game?

Cause the second magic is shown to be super powerful and require more than what normal people can do you have just entered a high magic setting.

If magic shows up and it requires the top minds and bodies of the world to show up you have just entered a mid level magic setting.

If magic shows up and you curb stomp it by just being a normal person why the fuck did you have magic in the first place?

You just don't want magic in you fantasy say it and get it over with. If you're making magic rare to be a DMs personal wank device you have JUST FUCKING DESTROYED YOUR STATEMENT OF
>players will think "Oh, just another fancy magical thing."
Cause they sure as fuck aren't going to think it's normal and are going to stop it with their thief tools.

>>43771726
I disagree.

>>43776991
That is true, and it also has nothing to do with what OP was saying.

>>43775940
Sounds like Ironclad, SENPAI.

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>>43769629
>anime image used in the op
>It's a shitpost
Why am I not surprised?

>>43769629
Here's a revolutionary thought: You and I find different things fun or entertaining.

There is no one size fits all for creativity and imagination. I pretty much feel the complete opposite of what you describe. Neither of us is wrong; it's a matter of preference.

>>43769629
>>43769629
Because there's only so many times you can run a gaggle of fighters through generic Europe land and not get sick of it.

>>43777122
>>43776991

Well, there's an interesting tangent here. I think that guy was saying, "The rare and unique still exists in high-fantasy, it's just a tier above the common commodity-magic".

I would actually disagree. I think there can be a categorical difference; in a mythic or low magic setting, the magic well whose water grants disease-resistance might be a minor landmark that every villager for 50 miles comes to drink from, and yet it might still be a unique magical phenomenon that no one can duplicate.

Conversely in less-mythic/high-magic land, the big bad guy's antilife-nuke cost a kingdom to research and create, but the other big bad guys will be able to duplicate it as soon as they infiltrate his magical lab and mindcopy one of his mages.

High/low magic is about how common magic is but it can also be about a different attitude towards magic.

>>43777595
I know several settings where those kinds of magic the badguy gets their hands on are foreign or extinct, or otherwise impossible without something unique.

>>43769629
Gotta disagree. Zelazny and Mckillip write high fantasy, but I'd never call the magic in their stories everyday. Or rather, it is for the characters in their stories, but that doesn't mean they have to be blase about it.

>>43777614

Oh, I know, but I'm comfortable making the generalization that unique magic is less common in high-magic settings if it exists at all. It's not just that there's a higher tier of unique magic, it's that magic is less likely to be unique, whereas in low magic its coming for even minor magics to be foreign or extinct or otherwise unique.

Forgotten Realms is a good benchmark for high-magic, there IS "lost magic" or unique magic but even that is just something where they've lost the blueprints, everything is reproducible in theory if you're powerful enough.

>>43773937
>>43773937

Planescape isn't my favorite setting and I'm not super familiar with it but I like it.
I know and like what is good about it.
I wouldn't mind knowing and thinking about what might be bad about it, and you haven't helped me in the slightest to do so.

What's a high fantasy, low magic setting?

>>43778171
AD&D 2e is pretty good at it. Fantastical creatures are given a place in the ecology of the world and anything that doesn't fit in this way is discarded. Imagine all the places in the real world that are awe - inspiring and take all the geographic and topographical possibilities and run with them.

That's basically my approach anyway.

>>43778171
>>43778171

You can probably think of made-up weirdness that you wouldn't describe as "magic", right? High-fantasy-low-magic has a lot of that.

Like if you have civilizations of bridge-builders living on floating islands, and they mostly get from island to island with gliders and ziplines but can travel long distances on light barges carried by giant beetles, that's high-fantasy-low-magic.

It's a squishy line because who's to say what is and isn't magical. Are floating islands magic? I say no but its debatable.

>>43772946
To be fair, that kind of worldbuilding was typical for its time.

We all have just been spoiled by Tolkien.

>>43769629
I'm too busy fucking your mom.

>>43769629
Because when you've got them jaded enough, you can start pulling the real tricks on them.

Like the alien race that looks like ordinary humans and are actually a single colonial organism.

The most incredible and fought over magic item is a simple cloak that makes you look and sound like a spectre of death - and that's all it does.

The enemy isn't the other races - it's the ecologies of the worlds they live on.

Dragons aren't born - they're artificial intelligence designed in city-sized factories and created as a check on mortal races.

>>43778602

When you can take certain things for granted the world actually becomes deeper and more complex. Low-fantasy settings are actually rather shallow in that anything can happen and when weird shit happens it doesn't need an explanation- it's a miracle. Worlds with rare mysterious magic keep players on their toes but they also keep players from being proactive, "Common reliable commodity magic" is a strategic landscape that the PCs can adapt to and thrive in, "unknown mythic just-because magic" is always a plot device, it doesn't mean you're railroading the PCs but it does keep them from predicting things and being pro-active, because they can't take anything for granted.

>>43779075

And I don't mean to say that either is good or bad. If I have to choose I sort of prefer mythic-rare-mysterious for magic, though most of my settings do both. I agree with the statement that common magic becomes stale and everyday, but that's only one side of the coin, I'm trying to explain the other side.

>>43769629
>muh realism!

If you think realism makes a setting good simply because of that, you have no imagination.

Consistency matters, not realism. Consistency means not hand-waving 'a wizard did it' when you have something fantastic. It's not 'what is magic', it's how people do magic. You can say something's mysterious, but you better have at least three solid ideas of how the mysterious exists instead of sweeping it under the rug. If you can't be bothered world-building, if you can't be bothered fleshing out a setting in any way, shape or form, with no internal consistency, then don't bother in the first place.

Excessive Realism kills fantasy. Fantasy should allow outlandish things to exist, but that doesn't mean without reason.

>>43779599
>Consistency matters, not realism
This, absolutely, is what matters.

The problem that so often spawns or contaminates these discussions is that a good 50% of people have never internalized the concept of consistency; so they default to realism vs surrealism because it's the only substitute they know.

What do you call a setting where supernatural stuff is pretty common(think more like Blasty Psionics rather than DnD "I summon a billion angels with gate and create a demiplane full of clones that I can Magic Jar with my Lich body" Divine/Arcane magic). To the point where some "mages" are foot soldiers, but magic items don't exist and the ones that do are closer to SCP type anomalies that don't really help anyone?

>>43779821
Star Wars?

>>43769744
By definition "low fantasy" and "high fantasy" only determine what the setting is, Both A Song of Ice and Fire and The Lord of the Rings are "high fantasy" while The Dresden Files is "low fantasy." It determines whether the story is set in the real world (or at least a fantastical variation of it) or a completely fictitious one.

>Nobody in this thread can even agree on a definition.

>>43769629

>he isn't an exalt

>>43779919
Because they're stupid terms when what needs to be focused on is consistency.

What do I mean by that?

An internal logic and set of laws/rules that govern how major elements in the setting work. Probably focused mostly on magic. You don't have to go into excruciatingly deep explanation on metaphysics, but you need to at least say, just for an example: 'Wizards use magical crystals to channel energy from another realm. The bigger the crystal, the more energy. A wizard cannot channel energy without a crystal'. That's all you need as a base set of rules to follow. You cannot handwave that, if you do for the sake of 'Oooooh mysterious!' then you failed. You can circumvent it, but if you do, explain how. You can bend rules to create drama, but only to a point.

This is like saying you should never run far-future space faring settings because then technology and space will get tedious. In short, fuck off.

Would Chronicles of the Black Company be high or low magic/fantasy? I feel like the fantasy level gets higher towards the end of the book, what with the Unknown Shadows running around everywhere. But for most, fantastic and magical thing are very rare.

But I don't know, tell me your opinion.

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>>43776992
You can have magic be rare and still have it vary in power, like in other settings

>>43775187
Even then it's pretty down to earth. At least in modern dinotopia. It's a high fantasy setting that has gone low.

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This is why I do high fantasy, low magic.

Making magic users at least somewhat scarce is good to preserve their role in society and make them fearsome and interesting.

But people in the societies worship planets and there are many races which are offshoots of humans (except the intelligent and relatively normal trolls who are civilized; they are their own thing.) People still starve in winter even if they have fire stones and fantastic materials to make their plows with.

>>43769629
>There is absolutely no reason not to X
I want to is always a reason.

>>43769629
There is also absolutely no reason to run whatever faggy thing you think is "TOTES TEH BESTIES ×3c" just because some faggot hipster online thinks his faggot hipster opinion has any bearing on reality