What's the deal with low fantasy GMs and settings?

I'm fairly sure this will be taken as shitposting, but I'm fine with it.
What I'm going to write will be anecdotal, so you're free to prove me wrong and tell me I'm a faggot, but seriously, what's the deal with low fantasy settings and GMs? I play tabletop since I was 12, and I'm now 21, and even though my friends kept on playing 3.5, I wanted to try more systems, more settings, and I explored pretty much everything I could find.
Talking about the GMs, high fantasy ones usually had fine ideas, cool, magic-heavy settings, and maybe not the best plots, but fuck it, it's cool. Sci-fi? You get interesting alien races and technology, and even if it's my personal opinion, it becomes godlike when it's somewhat plausible and justified. Same with cyberpunk and apocalypse settings, that can be gritty, even "grimdark", and still be cool.
That's not the case of low fantasy. Seriously, I had quarrels with every low fantasy enthusiast. Pretty much all you get from them, may it be IRL, on forums, or even there (be it shitposting, trolling, or serious posting), is "woah woah, listen here, we have uncorrect and anachronistic gritty medieval stuff (what's your fucking deal with the droit du seigneur?), political intrigue, a lot of illogical grimdark and peasants dying from plague.
And it's not just that, they always (I repeat, it's anecdotal, so I suppose there are reasonable low fantasy enthusiasts) think that every other setting is full of special snowflakes, mary sues, and badwrongfun. What's their deal with magic? I understand, you don't like it, but it isn't necessary to bash it even in videogames, novels and non-Veeky Forums related stuff.

I'm sorry if some of you guys like low fantasy and aren't like this, I know that I was probably unlucky, so please, if you can, explain this phenomena to me.

1. GoT became popular
2. Inept gamemasters trying to fix vertical power progression the only way they know how, by removing progression
3. GoT became popular.

>First answer best answer

You know, GoT was the first thing I thought about too. That also explains the unnecessary "Hah! People die anticlimatically! It's realistic!", which doesn't actually happen TOO MUCH in the novels, but somehow became a meme since people can't read.

First of all, learn to separate your paragraphs.

Frankly, I don't know what your point is. That you've encountered some people who sperg about how high fantasy is "unrealistic"?

That's not anything fucking new and it's not exclusive to people who like low fantasy.

>High fantasy is dumb. Magic and dragons and lady knights are for moralfags who like special snowflakes!
>Low fantasy is dumb. It's for mean-spirited edgelords who think medieval society was all shit brown and plague deaths. GoT ruined fantasy!
>Soft science fiction is dumb. It's for retards who just want shiny space ships, laser swords, and green alien waifus!
>Hard science fiction is dumb. It's for autistic GURPsfags who just want to pretend they know physics.
>Cyberpunk is dumb. It's for edgy liberals who can't stop bitching about "muh corporations!"
>Steampunk is dumb. It's just cogfapping and top hats. Also SJWs like it so it's bad.
>Urban fantasy is dumb. Manchildren just want to ERP with their werewolf fursonas and vampire witch waifus

People dislike things. Sometimes for good reasons. More often than not for shitty reasons.

1. Series like GoT became popular
2. There's some discrepancy on what low fantasy means, so you could basically have a high fantasy universe but just have magic be uncommon or rare, which is the main reason most GMs play low fantasy universes - wizards are too broken to be trusted.

you're faggot that meat faggots.

I prefer "low fantasy" where there's actually a lot of High Magic going on in the shadows, but it exacts a high price on it's practicioners, and the towns aren't full of Wizard Guilds or rival Clergy that can ressurect the dead.

Even LoTR is like this: the vast majority of regular people live their lives unexposed to High Magic, and when a sorceror shows up it's a big fucking deal and people are skittish about it, they aren't rushing him over to peruse their local "Magic Shoppe".

I'm working on a low-fantasy game that isn't realistic, it's simply more low-magic. The idea of it is to make magic special, and force mechanics like vancian magic (I'm using a system similar to 4e where you have at-will spells, then daily spells that can each be cast once per rest, no double-ups) actual value instead of just being additional bookkeeping. So magic is like a rocket launcher with limited ammo rather than a vague ceiling to keep the caster from doing infinite fireballs.

There are also rituals as a heavy part of the game, as well as downtime. Druids spend their downtime to store up mana points they can use to control the weather and stuff. Alchemists use downtime to craft alchemical items that are the core of their utility. Fighters use their downtime to train soldiers in the town, which is vital for when the raiders show up. There's even a botanist class that finds herbs to provide among the only healing in the game.

The theurge (cleric) works similarly to the druid, except he has to pray to the gods (who are dead, which is kind of weird and messes with the concept) to try to change up the village's random events table to try to stop droughts and what not.

I feel like Low Fantasy is meant to add value to things we have been desensitized to otherwise. Valuing equipment, a magic sword, a magic spell even, as a treasure, rather than simply a path on the upgrade to a +4 weapon.

I would personally consider AD&D low fantasy, compared to 3e and 4e, and even 5e. I'd consider GURPS and Game of Thrones to be very low fantasy. But that's just my interpretation.

Low fantasy has become grimderp historical fantasy without the the research, because that would take too much effort. It's just the stereotype of medieval Europe with fake names slapped on.

Yeah, you have a point, yet what I said wasn't that it never happened with other settings, just that it seemed more common with low fantasy.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan, but I don't whine too much about it, since I had very nice experiences with it. Yet, many enthusiasts seem to, usually in an elitist way.

Whereas in the main D&D settings, magic is like guns. You have gun shops, people can easily get training in them, armies bring plenty of them, and people trying to steal your shit are likely to use them.

Which in itself isn't the problem, if Magic was a simple Shields and Zaps sort of thing, but since it can control minds, translocate over vast distances, forecast the future, change matter into different forms, ect, ect, ect.....it gets pretty hard to rationalize why it hasn't warped society beyond all recognition. They certainly wouldn't resemble Ye Renaissance Faire in any fucking way.

Fuck, the mere invention of the electrical light began to change modern life in remarkable ways, that would pale against arcane spellcasting.

> just that it seemed more common with low fantasy.

I've seen far more people complain about people who like low fantasy then I've ever seen people who like low fantasy.

Low Fantasy is "in" right now because GoT is popular, and Veeky Forums feels obligated to hate anything popular.

That sounds pretty nice. I also think that AD&D was more low fantasy, with, as said, "High Magic going on in the shadow".
Anyway, your setting sounds cool and I'd play in it.

It's simple.

>Magic is too powerful
>all my players play rogues or fighters anyway

it's because people usually define "fantasy" as "d&d" and if you dial the fantasy parts down it's basically d&d without magic and edgier

also d&d-style magic is worth bashing because 9 times out of 10 it's "solve problem entirely with this spell with no consequences" and usually settings don't really explore the implications of what the result of that being an omnipresent thing is

Fritz Lieber's Lankhmar books are the best sort of D&D setting (and a huge inspiration for the original game, it invented many of it's tropes).

It's noteworthy that neither of the heroes, through their long and storied careers, ever touch a magic weapon. On occasion their wizard-patrons lend them some sort of Wondrous Item to aid them, but take them back afterwards.

There's all sorts of weird arcane shit in those books, but the heroes face it all with grit, ingenuity and the odd silvered-weapon.
I'm running a Lankhmar 5e campaign right now. The only arcane caster is a Trickster with low key spells.

>it's basically d&d without magic and edgier

Schwarbage. I've seen lots of people playing Necromancers and Gish that were FAR "edgier" than anything in GoT.

I am a fan of low-magic because whatever problems arise cannot just be magicked away desu. Even then, it still happens (like players resolving an entire investigation with a low-level speak with the dead spell).

I keep my settings very optimistic and diverse despite being low-magic. I have prominent, fun characters and what's the best is that I get to have really fun high-magic characters - archmages, ancient witches, lich kings - without them feeling mundane. Being a wizard suddenly becomes that much more significant if there are only 21 wizards in the kingdom. Finding a magic sword is a life and career changing event rather than another loot distribution session.

A little bit of grimderp is fine sometimes but I generally dislike it so include it very sparingly. I am also a fan of settings having (mostly) just and fair governments. You can bet that the queen in my setting will be noble and fair, knights - brave and loyal and a shrewd politician, despite acting shady at time, ultimately has the country's best interests at heart. Also, fey. I fucking love mischievous and otherworldly fey, which nonetheless never break their word, fear iron and reward those who outsmart them.

Call me boring, but that's the way I love my fantasy.

Hm, so, as I said, my experience was anecdotal. About the last part, I'm not sure Veeky Forums is bashing low fantasy. Many posters seem to enjoy falling in the "generic average joe character who inevitably becomes an anti-sue" issue.

That kinda depends on the system. If you're talking D&D, you're right. Then again, I can understand. The friends I talked about in the OP usually play fighters and rogues, too, and yet keep playing D&D. Maybe, exactly for that reason, they never found out about caster supremacy.

Yep, as I said up there. D&D 3.5 shouldn't be taken as an example, yet it is because of its fame. It gets playable if you delete tier 1 classes and substitute martials with ToB initiators, then change the setting in one more altered by magic, but as many posters say in this board, you could just change game as well.

I just want a setting that isn't filled with wizards who can annihilate the universe but don't because... Well actually just because that would fuck up the story. There is no reason any number of the crazy bastards haven't done it yet.

Yeah yeah yeah my not-europe isn't original. I don't give a fuck. I'm not looking for original. I'm looking for mundane characters can keep up, that +4 sword is a legendary treasure, and magic users exist but are rare as fuck cause magic is special.

>I am a fan of low-magic because whatever problems arise cannot just be magicked away

That's just bad writing, though, magic shouldn't be the end all and be all of problems, if you can just magic away a problem with no need to research or struggle or anything, it's just unimaginative.

I agree, though, magic should be magical, finding a magic sword should be a career changing event for a warrior, you shouldn't just go talk to the local wizard spokesperson in the wizard academy full of wizards, you should have to seek that shit out because it's important and rare and powerful, magical dangers and events ought to have weight to them and not be another job for blue collar wizards to magically duct tape up.

It is incredibly easy for casters to abuse the system and become fabulously wealthy and powerful.

So in my setting some wizards already did that...
Many years ago.
and if they detect any of that economy shattering shenanigans then they put a stop to it very quickly.

/thread

Learn to format your posts.

Also, I like low-magic settings, and it has nothing to do with GoT.

>1. GoT became popular
>Low fantasy is dumb. It's for mean-spirited edgelords who think medieval society was all shit brown and plague deaths. GoT ruined fantasy!
>1. Series like GoT became popular

GoT (the TV show, at least. No idea about the books) is also incredibly inaccurate at portraying a society which is supposed to even somewhat resemble 15th century Britain. The costuming is completely off, for one. Actual medieval people wore colorful clothing. Yes, even the commoners. Modern fashion sense is far, FAR, more subdued and drab. The "everyone wore brown and black"-thing is some weird modern attempt at showing how GRITTY things were.

It's a roleplaying game I'm working on called The Fallen Land. Search for it on DriveThruRPG in about 2 years and you'll be able to find it.

>>I just want a setting that isn't filled with wizards who can annihilate the universe but don't because... Well actually just because that would fuck up the story
If you want a headcanon, remember that most world ending plots get foiled by a team of PCs.

So when a mage decides to destroy the world, the will of the universe shunts a team of murderhobos together to kick their shit in.

>dead PCs get rerolled into new characters
And when those murderhobos are killed, even more emerge. It's fate.

My system has ArchMages, (in D&D terms Epic level wizards who are the zenith of their school of magic).

Two of them are functional God Kings. Another one would be if he wasn't driving utterly insane with power and let his subjects rebel constantly because he finds it entertaining to fight them (Or rather let them think they're making progress and then randomly show up and kill them all horribly in the blink of an eye). The other three are reclusive and take on some students for tradition and company but mostly can't be bothered they are trying to actually become gods leave them alone.

So yeah, I've got that in my setting up to a point. But aside from the Necromancers (which is more of a plot point) full blown mages have to be born with the Touch and still trained a good deal of their levels to MAYBE hit Level 1 status. There are probably a few of dozen of them in the entire world.

Lot more hedge wizards and ritual based magics though. Still relatively rare but every geographic area has an ol' coot with a little bit of mojo and lore when needed living in a cave somewhere.

There is also a subtle plot point that whatever it is that actually fuels Arcane magic kind of breaks human minds and most wizard will die stark raving mad.

Other magic types are a little easier to swing. Cleric Class level priests are literally chosen by their deity, you won't find them in every temple. Paladins are literally champions, see above. Ect ect.

Also in my setting magic actually did more or less destroy the world at least once. Maybe destroyed the world 'before' that era as well.

It's a dark age as people are just starting to crawl out from the magical fallout, with some areas still teeming with abominations that were created as weapons (Most monsters).

Look here, an example of a "low fantasy" setting would be a ninja-pirate and a psychic monk trying to win the psychic information war so that their own nation can get a leg up on their opponents.

A high fantasy setting would be them trying to destroy the mcguffin to fatally weaken the BBEG who's also an ancient godlike being from the time when the world was created.

high/low fantasy has to do with setting, not plot.

The fact that the show isn't accurate to medieval Europe doesn't make it not low-fantasy. No one's arguing that GoT is historical fiction, just that it's inspired a lot of people on ideas of low fantasy (which it is).

Not necessarily. High fantasy also relates to the stakes raised in the game, overall tone and magnitude of the events - which are all very much connected to the plot.

Separating a setting from plot is also not quite right, because events of a story cannot unfold outside the world they take part in and in any good campaign would influence each other.

Its economics run on BS
>LOL LET ME JUST CASUALLY REMOVE 80% OF ALL LABOUR FROM THIS YOUR MARKET
>YOU ARE THE BEST QUEEN THE BEST

Setting dictates what kind of plots are viable, so those are interchangeable elements.

That still doesn't make it not low fantasy, or not an inspiration to people who like the idea of a gritty 'realistic' setting.

...

I always thought GoT was high fantasy because dragons

It's 100% because autistic retards play D&D almost exclusively, and it trains them to be even worse roleplayers and gamers.

They get retarded expectations of how RPGs are supposed to work, and rage whenever something falls outside of their incredibly narrow range of "sword and Vancian sorcery".

High or low fantasy, as far as I know, is a mixture of tone and the amount of magical things in the setting.

High fantasy tends to have stronger extremes of good and evil, and there's more supernatural things - undead, dragons, elves, dwarves, all that jazz. Magic tends to be fairly commonplace.

GoT would count more as low fantasy because the majority of the setting only has humans. Magic is just coming back into the world, and there's only some small effects in the story so far - the three baby dragons, the undead people of the north, a few spells. But magic is not at all commonplace.

>Setting dictates what kind of plots are viable

Not at all.

...

You could easily have a spy plot in a low fantasy or high fantasy setting. Even 'grabbing the macguffin and stopping the lich' is possible in a low fantasy setting as well. It would just be treated differently than in a high fantasy setting.

The meaning originated in literary criticism--low fantasy describing
>what if basically real world but some magic
and high fantasy describing
>what if entire imaginary world, with or without dragons or wizards or magic swords

Either could overlap with heroic or epic fantasy, where the main characters are virtuous heroes, with the fate of the world depending on their actions.

Turns out language changes. GAYMERS find it more useful to describe a setting by power level and level of magic fuckery.

Well it makes sense - as the fantasy genre has grown, it's harder to describe things as simply being like the real world, or completely imaginary.