WHat defines high fantasy? what are the staples of high fantasy worlds and stories?

Setting: A world other than ours. It may have a nominal connection with present day Earth, such as being our remote past or future, but this plays no role in the plot. Mythopoeia is often put into play to define the very metaphysics of the world. Nevertheless it often resembles medieval Europe, and is often peopled by People of Hair Color.

Scale: Epic. Power politics, wars, the death of nations, gods walking the earth, and the real threat of The End of the World as We Know It. This is what distinguishes High Fantasy from Heroic Fantasy.

Great evil: An enemy which is near enough Evil incarnate or fundamentally abhorrent, as opposed to the Grey and Gray Morality and human-versus-human conflicts more common in Low Fantasy.

Methods: Victory is not achieved through force of arms, the main feature distinguishing High Fantasy from Heroic Fantasy. If Aragorn had killed Sauron in hand-to-hand combat, that would have been Heroic Fantasy. In short, a Supporting Leader or the Reluctant Hero will be offered up instead of the rough-hewn barbarian of, say, Conan the Barbarian or Beowulf.

High Fantasy: Rock on! A thong and a suitable hat is plenty. Nobody gives a shit if it's not practical as long as you look cool/gorgeous/menacing.
Low Fantasy: You spent all day in the forest and now you're covered in nettle bites, scratches and other shit. Also, people look at you like you're a prostitute. Alos, you are constantly sich or freeze to death because of your inappropriate clothes.

>The same test also applies to high-heels, chainmail bikins, absurd pauldrons and oversized weapons.

That it isn't in Lord of the Rings, and Lord of the Rings is High Fantasy.

>WHat defines high fantasy?
nothing

High/low fantasy is essentially a meme from the 60's, when a few lit majors were trying really hard to codify fantasy stories (the whole alternative world nonsense). In roleplaying/video gaming terms it's simply used as a descriptor of tone and power level.

He Man is sci fi, Eternia just chooses to have a medieval aesthetic.

Definitions vary and there's no consistance to them

That's beside the point. People don't sneer at bikini armor because they're prudes (well, some people might be), but because it's pretending to be armor. Look at Conan in the movies, he goes into battle half-naked, but he's at least honest about his lack of armor so nobody cares. He doesn't wear three metal Doritos on his crotch and nipples and act like it's effective at deflecting hits. Half-naked warriors are only ridiculous when they're trying to have it both ways.

There is no plausible in-universe justification for bikini armor without admitting it's just for show, in which case it should give the smallest possible mechanical benefit.
>Good metal is rare and that's all the armor they can afford!
People would use other materials. Covering less vital areas with boiled leather, laquered wood or hardened linen is better than nothing.
Furthermore, people generally want to wear clothes under their armor for comfort. You fail to explain why there is no possible middle ground between steel plates and bare skin.
>They don't need armor because they're protected by magic!
Then why wear any armor at all? Why wear it specifically on the crotch and nipples?
What is so important about those areas that you can never be too careful with them, while your head and midriff are apparently immune to damage?
>Muh bility!
Then why wear any armor at all? Why wear it specifically on the crotch and nipples?
Any amount of armor adds weight, so by that logic you should be naked. Also, most types of armor aren't that heavy if you have the required training.
>It's meant to distract the enemy!
That falls under "just for show", and don't flatter yourself honey.
>The god of sex bestows defense bonuses to sexy warriors in bikini armor, and it MUST be metal or else it's not sexy enough!
I want out of this magical realm.

>Conan the Barbarian High fantasy just because it's not set on Earth.
>not set on Earth

If any further proof was needed that Wikipedia has gone to shit, there you have it.

High elves.
High elves define high fantasy.
Dark elves on the other hand define dark fantasy and wood elves, wood fantasy.

Low Fantasy: Takes place on Earth and the general laws of nature apply, albeit fantastical elements are present. The Legends of King Arthur, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Harry Potter are examples of Low Fantasy

High Fantasy: Takes place on a world that is not earth with its own laws of nature. A Song of Fire & Ice, Discworld, or The Elder Scrolls series are examples of High Fantasy

The point of bikini armor and loincloths is to show that the protagonist can survive even without proper armor. It is to make them look larger than life and above common men.

While I agree that it is stupid for characters to be attired as such all the time it is equally stupid to cry about 'muh r-ah'lizm' every time it crops up and is detremental to storytelling.

that definition makes no sense for games. insteads...

low fantasy: low frequency of magic/magical items/monsters within the setting
high fantasy: high frequency of the above

The point of bikini armor is for people to fap to these characters.

Partially. It's basically just the girl version of the 'bare chested warrior' which serves precisely that purpose.

I also think it looks dumb, but I'm getting real sick generally of people on this board applying laws of reality onto fantasy shit where it clearly doesn't fit, then publically fingering their assholes over how smart they think it makes them look.

Realism =/= Internal Consistency

>A Song of Fire & Ice is an example of high fantasy

It makes perfect sense and it applies sensibly. Using the prevalence of magic and monsters to decide is utterly arbitrary, as what one person decides is up the wall might seem rather average for another. It also doesn't account for the fact that the prevalence may change over time or of barriers between certain beings. A demigod hero in the setting will doubtless reach more fantastical feats and slay more fantastical monsters then a group of average schmucks might. Likewise the setting itself might have an extremely bizarre and magical back drop but the people inhabiting might be rather mundane or vice versa.

It clearly is. The world is caught in a cycle of decades long Summers and Winters that signal times of prosperity and incredible hardship, The world does not seem to be round, and magic waxes and wanes based on the actions of people and the presence of certain gods and beings. The setting just happens to begin at a period where magic is at one of it's lowest points of prevalence due to the absence of Dragons. The world is extremely fantastical compared to ours even if the inhabitants of the world are ignorant to it at the time the story takes place.

I say its more a molder breaker or a reconstruction. It begins as low fantasy and becomes more high as time goes one. Nevertheless it is far more low in terms of ideals and morals than any High Fantasy setting, hence reconstruction (take into account the criticism of low settings and incorporate it into high setting).

Bikini armor has never looked good with real actors. It always sucks hard.

That's gritty vs. pulp, and doesn't have a whole lot to do with high vs. low fantasy definitions.

>What defines high fantasy?
Whether or not it takes place in another world. That's basically it. Both high-magic and low-magic High Fantasy exists, don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.

The world is, most of the story is not, which is where the disagreement stems from I believe.

Basically the opposite of what says.

Low fantasy and high fantasy is generally judged by how much fantasy elements are in it and how common they are.

For example, in a low fantasy setting, Magic and monsters might exist, but they're extremely uncommon or very rarely seen.

In a high fantasy setting, they're practically a day to day part of life.

The first chapter in the first book is the King of the Frozen North using his magical sword to execute a runaway guardian of the massive magical wall that keeps the world safe right before his bastard son finds a group of Direwolves linked to each of the Lord's children by destiny. Fantastical elements reemerging in the world is one of the key points of the story.

And if monsters are common and magic is not?

Depends on the frequency and how its handled, but probably still high fantasy. Monsters and Magic are just examples.

>oversized weapons.
Game of Thrones isnt high fantasy

what if my female fighter just likes the aesthetic, you little faggot?

>Then why wear any armor at all? Why wear it specifically on the crotch and nipples?
>What is so important about those areas that you can never be too careful with them, while your head and midriff are apparently immune to damage?

Modesty is the obvious answer. Also what if the material matters when adding enchantments to them?

Also I think you're putting way too much thought into it all. Not everything needs to specifically state its style over function. Its usually just going on rule of cool or sexy in this case.

>Using the prevalence of magic and monsters to decide is utterly arbitrary
that is in the nature of genre definitions. compare musical genres.

> It also doesn't account for the fact that the prevalence may change over time or of barriers between certain beings
if there are suddenly more fantastical elements in the setting, people will say that the setting has changed from low to high fantasy

>A demigod hero in the setting will doubtless reach more fantastical feats and slay more fantastical monsters then a group of average schmucks might.
that does not impact the above proposed definition. if monsters are rare it will lend itself more to low fantasy. otherwise more to high fantasy.

>Likewise the setting itself might have an extremely bizarre and magical back drop but the people inhabiting might be rather mundane or vice versa.
if fantastical elements are common in gameplay, then it's high fantasy. if the setting merely has a magical background that rarely if ever comes into play, then it is still low fantasy

it's all about the gameplay, dude.

t. literary fag who doesn't understand the difference between written fiction and gaming

this. it comes down to how frequent fantastical elements impact gameplay

It is

>Stakes. Themes.
This is stupid, using this logic fucking scifi settings could be high fantsy. High fantasy has and has as a focus fanciful things, not just or necessarily magic, but places, people, beasts, and the like. If your setting has little to no focus on magic, no fanciful beasts, no strange races, no fanciful cities or landmarks than it probably isn't high fantasy.

>I'm getting real sick generally of people on this board applying laws of reality onto fantasy shit where it clearly doesn't fit, then publically fingering their assholes over how smart they think it makes them look.

Fucking hell. So much this.

Musical genres aren't arbitrary until you get into the deep sub-genres at which point the complexities begin to overlap and it's easy to apply the qualities of one to another. High and Low Fantasy are clear cut and large genres that apply to the entirety of all fantasy games.

All your pointing out is that your definition is meaningless and changes frequently over the course of the game based on arbitrary qualifiers which makes it a shitty way to categorize the genre of a setting.

The worst part is that it seems hypocritical and nitpicky at best. Like this ONE element is too unrealistic, but conjuring fire from thin air and monsters is A-OK.

Some things stretch the limits of suspension of disbelief. Superman flying? aright. Clark kent and his magic glasses and a memory erasing kiss? no.

>to show that the protagonist can survive even without proper armor
Then that falls under "just for show", and should not actually function any better than cloth in terms of game mechanics, like it demonstrably does in games such as World of Warcraft.
>my female fighter just likes the aesthetic
Then that falls under "just for show", and should not actually function any better than cloth in terms of game mechanics, like it demonstrably does in games such as World of Warcraft.
>Modesty
Then that falls under "just for show", and should not actually function any better than cloth in terms of game mechanics, like it demonstrably does in games such as World of Warcraft.

Technically speaking, one isn't any more unbelievable than the other. Can you actually explain why flying is okay, but the kiss is any more unbelievable?

Do you only play games/watch shows that are 1:1 realistic?

You're ignoring everything else stated here

The actual, academic definition of high fantasy is that it exists in an entirely separate cosmology to standard or 'low' fantasy. For example, The Lord of the Rings is high fantasy, whereas The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe or Three Hearts and Three Lions are low fantasy.

However, practically speaking, especially when we talk of TTRPG settings, 'high fantasy' refers to settings where the fantastical elements are obvious and very much apparent in the history, nature, and appearance of the world. WHFB is high fantasy, for example, because it has wizard schools in each major city, entire civilizations of supernatural or superhuman beings (elves, orcs, lizardmen, etc), flying fortresses held magically aloft, haunted forests that are blatantly supernatural and recognized as such by everyone in the setting, etc. Low fantasy is fantasy where these elements are subdued and often secretive.

Veeky Forums often confuses dark fantasy (which can be high or low) with low fantasy because of the amount of 'grit' involved. In reality the distinction has nothing to do with that.

The amount of change individuals can exert. In low fantasy games players may save a town or purge evil from a small area. In high fantasy games players regularly save the world.

>The actual, academic definition
The literary "definition" of high fantasy is at best a scattered group of opinions that rarely coincide.

>everything else
What else? The "material matters when adding enchantments" part?
Sure, you can decide the rules of magic in your setting state it HAS to be made of metal to hold enchantments. What's stopping your bikini warriors from wearing a shirt under the enchanted parts? Hell, what's stopping them from wearing a magic forcefield generator on a belt or a bracelet? Why does the ONLY WAY just happen to cater to a fetish?
Do the rules of magic also state enchanted armor HAS to be shaped like a bikini, and it HAS to be worn with no clothing whatsoever under or around it, and it HAS to be worn only by sexy busty muscle-bimbos? At that point you're clearly writing with your dick and I want no part in it.

>Musical genres aren't arbitrary until you get into the deep sub-genres at which point the complexities begin to overlap and it's easy to apply the qualities of one to another.
i can't define funk but i generally recognize it when i hear it. someone might disagree with me whether song X is funk and we can have a debate over it. that doesn't make the term funk a meaningless label.

>High and Low Fantasy are clear cut and large genres
i am presuming you are referring to your preferred definitions here but they are far from commonly used that way in the RPG sphere. that is because the distinction that affects gameplay more significantly is the prevalence of fantastic elements.

the terms get usually used to introduce a setting to new players and as such the issue of whether the game takes place in earth's past or on a completely different planet is less meaningful information.

>All your pointing out is that your definition is meaningless
terms don't need to be super-sharply defined to see usage in real life. rough understanding is generally enough, especially when they are only used in the introduction of a setting.

>changes frequently over the course of the game
changes from low to high fantasy or vice versa are fringe cases that don't invalidate the definition, sorry. settings are generally stable.

>>my female fighter just likes the aesthetic
>Then that falls under "just for show", and should not actually function any better than cloth in terms of game mechanics
so? it still means that characters run around in bikini chainmails and people will continue to sneer at them. also to compensate for it, those characters might be inexplicably good at dodging attacks

>like it demonstrably does in games such as World of Warcraft
>he uses WoW as template for his criticism
>laughinggirls.jpg

>Veeky Forums often confuses dark fantasy (which can be high or low) with low fantasy because of the amount of 'grit' involved. In reality the distinction has nothing to do with that.
there is a connection though: in a high fantasy game there is an abundance of healing if not outright resurrection, detracting from the gritty nature of an otherwise dark fantasy setting. that's why dark fantasy is largely a subset of low fantasy.

tolkien
clear diference between good and evil
heroic tales with hope at end

Having dragons, zombies, and shitty fairies doesn't automatically make you high fantasy.

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I can explain it. It's because everyone forgets that after the silver age Superman still had light telepathy.

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WHFB is high fantasy and has very few capable healers, like one in a thousand priests of whatever god may have miraculous healing powers, and arcane magic is almost always too corrupting and dangerous to use for healing. Middle Earth doesn't have many individuals capable of magical healing either - basically just the Istari and a few elves who are cloistered far away from the rest of the world. Iron Kingdoms, too, has almost no real healing - the ability to mend flesh is the domain of super-rare, super-faithful adherents of certain gods, and resurrecting the dead requires direct divine intervention.

D&D settings are probably the only ones where healing can be taken for granted, and even in many of them resurrection isn't something that comes cheaply. I can't really think of a high fantasy setting outside stuff like Forgotten Realms where magical healing is commonplace.

And then on the other end of your argument, Dark Souls, while definitely dark fantasy, has a ton of healing and resurrection magic. So does, say, oldschool Diablo.

It's literally the textbook definition for high and low fantasy. Just because you prefer your meaningless qualifier of what is high and low fantasy to describe them doesn't make it "far from common". You wouldn't use a genre term with specific connotations to explain something to a new player anyway, just like you wouldn't use specific genre conventions when explaining your favorite music to someone who is unfamiliar with the terms. Changes in the degree of magic the players interact with is not at all a fringe case, the return of magic or rise of very powerful relics and spell casters is a commonplace occurrence in many settings.

>It's literally the textbook definition for high and low fantasy.
textbooks can't set the definition, instead they have to follow common usage. furthermore textbooks for literary definitions of the terms are irrelevant for our gaming experience.

>You wouldn't use a genre term with specific connotations to explain something to a new player anyway
people here use it all the time to talk about settings.

>Changes in the degree of magic the players interact with is not at all a fringe case, the return of magic or rise of very powerful relics and spell casters is a commonplace occurrence in many settings.
it only matters if the general frequency in the setting changes

The RPG definitions are usually debatable, and about power levels, but the literary ones, less so: consider LOTR vs Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

High fantasy: all magic is morally aligned divine miracles.
Low fantasy: magic is a dangerous but morally gray tool.

There is no one definition. There are multiple competing definitions, and whether or not something is "high fantasy", and what those staples of those stories would be, is itself dependent on what definition you use.

The problem is that nerds like to come up with "objective" reasoning behind their opinions, so that people who disagree with them are then "objectively" wrong.

>It's basically just the girl version of the 'bare chested warrior' which serves precisely that purpose.
Bikini armor is EQUIVALENT to the "bare chested warrior" trope, but not IDENTICAL in design. You don't see male warriors wearing literally the exact same object in the exact same place, which implies there is some room for variation.
Therefore whatever IN-UNIVERSE function (you'd be hard-pressed to find an example of a non-satire setting where the "rule of sexy" is an in-universe thing that characters are aware of) is served by bikini armor, such as generating a magical forcefield, does not require that specific form.
What is the IN-UNIVERSE explanation for bikini armor granting say +10 AC bonus, but if you wear any clothes under it (or over it, or around it, if you say it needs skin contact), the bonus disappears, AND the functional equivalent for male warriors is not shaped or worn like a bikini at all but gladiator leather straps with one pauldron? There is only so much you can say "shut up it's magic" before it becomes obvious the real explanation is entirely meta.

Not everyone

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Did she burn her boob?

Dumbest definition I've ever seen.

>World of Warcraft
>World of Warcraft
>World of Warcraft
That's quite the sample there user. I think you belong to /v/

He already did. It's suspension of disbelief. It's not that a man flying is believable, it's that Superman flying makes thematic sense, even more if you consider it developed out of his original ability to make high leaps. Flying was impossible to humanity for most of our history, and not for lack of trying. So a man who flies, with no need of assistance from machines, can be taken as symbolizing someone with ultimate personal power, someone who can do the impossible. Most of the rest of his powers are also extremely exaggerated human abilities.

But despite the many attempts to explain it over the years, the Clark Kent disguise is still counter-intuitive and dumb. Same thing with skimpy armor, for both genres. There are settings where it fits and others where it doesn't because it takes you out of the tone, making you aware of how stupid many other things may be.

genders*

Sorry I need some sleep

So magic existing is cool but the idea that that magic might be better protection than armor is bad? The idea of specific designs enhancing magic surely isn't a new one. Also perhaps separating the skin from that specific design with cloth might diminish the effect as in the ability of the magic conducting to the wearer, like electricity. Also I like bikinis but would be remiss to say it caters to my fetishes. Unless she's giving me a bj but hey we're sexual creatures. Also why isn't this a problem for the scantily clad male barbarians? Is that your fetish and the reason you're avoiding bringing it up? Also it's fucking fantasy

high fantasy requires a sturdy ladder.

Not him, but the whole "chain mail bikini/naked barbarian" thing came from the COVERS of early pulpy fantasy/sci-fi which most often didn't even reflect the contents of the text. Conan just dressed like a relatively normal person, for instance. Burroughs went the opposite way. Tarzan originally went naked and nudity was commonplace in Barsoom.

>Tarzan originally went naked
...when he was in the jungle, of course.

I think the real reason behind the chain mail bikinis was, as you said, the covers. It was the need to censor the nipples(female) and genitals so they could be shown on comic book racks

>the idea that that magic might be better protection than armor is bad?
Wow, I never came close to saying that.
My point is, if you as an author deliberately lay down the rules of magic in your setting so that female (and only female) magical warriors CANNOT have magic forcefields without wearing bikini armor, that is building fluff around something sexual by fiat.
It is akin to deciding the rules of magic in your setting require collecting jars of other people's urine to pour on your head when casting spells because fuck you it's magic it works however you say it works.
>Also perhaps separating the skin from that specific design with cloth might diminish the effect
Okay, so does wearing cloth OVER or AROUND the metal part also make it not work? No alternative? How fucking convenient.
>Also why isn't this a problem for the scantily clad male barbarians?
Because unless male barbarians have to wear literally the exact same two metal Doritos on their nipples to get the same effect, it's evidently not the reason why that oddly specific magic works.
Thus the in-universe explanation is bullshit and we're back to "because the author finds it sexy" again.

This, I have no problem with bikini armor in pulpy, anything swords and sorcery, something ridiculously high fantasy and magic could also be fine with it. But when some fuckboi creates a discount SoIaF where everything is shit and gritty and knights in armor clash and armies with reasonable armor war, and then some adventurers wear bikini armor. Of course it's not always so polarized, but generic fantasy is something more common and almost as bad, LotR would not work with chainmail bikinis and if you rip half your races from it whole-sale I'll treat it the same.

>who only wears leather?
You tell that prick to get a gambeson.

You conveniently skipped the part where I said it's fantasy. Sorry it's fucking fantasy, but the fucking was not literal but instead meant as an means of emphasis

>it's fantasy
Which is not an in-universe explanation.
I said here >There is no plausible in-universe justification for bikini armor without admitting it's just for show
>in-universe

Also you didn't say anything about it being or not being your fetish. Also also also also, men and women have a different physiology. Why would it be absolutely necessary for a magic item intended for men to not be of a different design to have the same effect as an item designed for women? Off the top of my head, men naturally have a higher amount of iron in their blood. Perhaps that ancient, highly regarded element has something to do with the design. Maybe men can channel the correct energy through one huge pauldron whereas women have to have a more comprehensive cover. Trying to rationalize the way magic works as something as objective is a fool's errand. And, you sir, are a fool. Like I said it's fantasy

Just to make sure you get your (you) for that one

A setting is still a literary work whether it's in regards to a game or a book you dumb ass, its a component of the story. People here aren't newcomers to fantasy either, except you probably.

Thats not explaining it. In fact, thats nothing more than hand waving an explaination away going " suspension of disbelief! "

Theres nothing inherently different between the two. The kiss is no less believable than flying.

An actual explanation in this case is that Superman had established powers before hand and that the new ability was largely just a plot point pulled out of nowhere to solve a problem.

How much fantasy is in your fantasy. That's how I define it. If your average Joe can crack open a book and fling a fireball, then it's high. If your average Joe has to study for a decade before even summoning a spark, then it's low. The same applies to other fantastical elements.

I think I have the ultimate for high fantasy shit.
Escaflowne, no really, think about it.
Giant suits of armor (Steam punk magic mecha) powered by the CRYSTALLIZED HEARTS OF DEAD DRAGONS

Also all the other shit, Hermaphrodites, Beastmen, Floating Fortresses and airships that use levitating rocks shit gets nuts.

I think by that point it's gone into science fantasy.

Well that's the weird part, everyone is running around using medeval weapons and the giant mecha are scarce