>Low Fantasy
>Not dark, grim and gritty.
Is that possible?
>>46570932
things aren't shit, but the reason they aren't shit isn't magic
>>46570932
Yes.
>>46570932
Sigh. Define low fantasy.
>>46570932
Is lord of the rings low fantasy? We see magic, but it is actually pretty rare.
Comfy low fantasy.
>Serfs work the land for their lieges, who for the most part are both competent and decent people.
>The church is mostly interested in organizing festivals and feasts and running orphanages than crusades or inquisitions.
>Party is on a fetch quest for the eight magic mcguffins used to awaken an elder evil, but that's mostly background (there's no race to get them) and most of the time is spent helping villages with their problems, ranging from dealing with petty thieving kobolds to getting medicine for a fever to saving a kid that wandered off in the woods.
>Magic is both slow and subtle, and practitioners rarely exceed hedge-witch levels of power. A wizard on an adventure is more likely to put his powers towards ensuring agreeable weather and lucky breaks rather than fireballs and dragon summoning.
>>46573652
lord of the rings is typically considered the defining work of high fantasy
>>46573953
I would say it set the precedent for what later became high fantasy, but using the, admittedly vague, modern definitions of low and high fantasy, it would be considered closer to low fantasy.
>>46573652
Comparatively it's pretty low fantasy. The only deity in the setting more or less doesn't exist to the eyes of the common man, the only thing Eru ever did after creating His world was help one guy win one duel once.
Hell, the only really supernatural things that we see are agents of God, more or less angels.
The movies gave it a few coats of high fantasy paint what with all the impossible architecture and LITERAL "eye of sauron", and some of the creatures like the cave trolls and the balrogs are pretty well into high-ish fantasy territory to begin with, so honestly depending on how you remember it, it could go either way.
>>46570932
So I'm going with this definition from Wikipedia:
>"nonrational happenings that are without causality or rationality because they occur in the rational world where such things are not supposed to occur"
So, make a world that draws on fabulous exotic things from RL.
Or set it in a relatively happy, peaceful part of the real world, or an exotic, strange part of the real world. Or both.
Then add the unexplained fantasy elements.
>>46570932
So A Knight's Tale, but with a little bit of magic or something?
>>46570932
Calradia.
>>46574091
I think the issue is with LotR is that it is, to put it in /tg/ parlance, a low-magic campaign in a very high-magic setting. The Silmarillion talks about dragons that towered over mountain ranges and elves that weave the light of the stars into gems and all sorts of incredible things that are traditionally thought of as high fantasy. The actual novels, though, don't really touch on them except when they sing about the past. It's like using Exalted to run a game where everyone plays mortals and the only enemies you see or hear about are also mortals; yeah there are solars and lunars and fuckers killing each other with poetry, but that's also Somewhere (or Somewhen) Else and the game currently being played at the table would likely be considered low fantasy as the party struggles to cross a mountain and fight off simple bandits.
Considering the world of LotR was supposed to be one on the decline at least in terms of magic and other fantastical elements, though, I guess it makes sense to have that division/confusion.
>>46574404
Is Mount and Blade fantasy? I don't recall any fantasy elements.
>>46570932
Kings Quest 5?
>>46570932
Yeah, just leave out magic but makes things hopeful. Put it somewhere close to a renaissance minus the shit.
A lot of elements of low fantasy that people treat as realistic are pessimistic and inaccurate anyways. Reality is typically about half-way between the childish ideals and the cynical take of recent works, with spots of people on all ends of good and evil scattered all over. Peasants had more freedom than people typically think they did and a lot of regions all across the world had more food than they could do with through all of history. Slavery is always around but not all slaves were treated as dirt and many cultures that had slavery carried a stigma with it, which is exactly the reason it eventually vanished.
The only thing you need to do to make low fantasy not dark, grim or gritty, is deciding that you'll make low fantasy not dark, grim or gritty. Whatever take you're going with on the definition, it shouldn't be hard to do.
>>46573898
That sounds comfy as fuck, Sempai.
>>46570932
Assuming by low fantasy you mean fantasy with little overt magic.
A lot of versions of the King Arthur legend are pretty low fantasy and they can still be pretty idealistic.
Hell even Conan wasn't particularly grim or gritty. Sure there was a lot of death but it was more in line with cathartic action movie death. Most of the guys doing the fighting and dying were dude who were down for that sort of thing anyway. And dispute all the evil in the world Hyboria wasn't exactly lacking in heroes.
In fact a lot of pulp stuff with hints of the supernatural could qualify. They tend to be more about exciting adventures of daring-do with strange happing here and there than they are about brooding over the grimness of the world.
![6985285[2].png](https://i.imgur.com/jzMG2LU.png "6985285[2].png")
>>46570932
>Is that possible?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=ELGXxQQqRaQHA
Pay special attention to episode 1. That's how you create a low fantasy setting that's not dark, grim and gritty. It's not perfect, but it's a far cry away from endless suffering.
>>46573898
Sounds nice and comfortable, yeah.
9/10, would have qt innkeeper waifu and retire to life of farming.
Spice and Wolf.
>>46570932
Stable Conditions: A game of intense social roleplay between two rival horse breeding families.
>>46577165
Reminds me of the time I painted potatoes red and sold them as apples. Or when my character dipped onions in red fondant to give out free candy apples.
>>46573898
>Shirepunk setting
8/10 could run on the side indefinitely
