Philip Hibbs responds:
> Don't you mean "high-fantasy"? Wizards and heroes are "low-fantasy",
> complex cultures and little peoples' individual lives are "high-fantasy".
> The terms are defined by literary critics, so they picked the
> complimentary-sounding term for the high-brow stuff.
Woah. that's almost exactly the opposite of how it's used around here. As far as Roleplaying games go the terms are used (around here anyway) somewhat like the following.
High fantasy is powerful knights and wizards who make decisions that affect large chunks of land. Sort of Lord of the Rings territory, I guess (What, the characters have saved the world _again_?). Generally the protagonists don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or having expensive clothes to wear out on adventure. Chivalry and Sorcery was pretty high fantasy most of the time. Characters worry about who's trying to drive the peasants off the land to make the local baron unable to pay appropriate taxes to the king.
Low fantasy is where people worry about scraping enough dosh together to pay for dinner, and a lot of them end up dying really unpleasantly in a ditch somewhere, having made no difference what so ever to the world. Low fantasy worlds are often a lot dirtier (no one can afford off screen laundry fees) and pairs of trollkin with slings and ambush tunnels can be really troublesome. In such settings, characters are worried about who stole the neighbours pig, and how to get enough money to pay for fixing the cart.
Either high or low can have complex cultures, to me it's mostly a matter of scale. Little peoples lives however are probably a good indication of low fantasy to me. (especially if it's the characters).
I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I've never heard it distinguished that way. Literary critics may well use the terms that way, but I don't describe games using those terms that way.
Steve
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