Poll: Sword & Sorcery or High Fantasy?

[TheEldestScroll]

High fantasy is usually an epic tale that follows a story of a hero fighting against a world threatening force. One of the main themes in high fantasy stories is good verses evil. In high fantasy you will see things like elves, dwarves, dragons, wizards, made up languages and stuff like that. The stakes are usually very high and there is a strong magic element. Grand cities, giant battles, and a lot of adventure.

Sword and Sorcery almost always follows a male protagonist. The story is usually a dramatic tale based around personal conflict or revenge as it follows the hero's adventures. It obviously uses themes like dungeons, sword based combat, and the supernatural/magic. The settings are usually but not always darker than high fantasy and you'll find things like, mercenaries, temples, evil fortresses, and things like that. Women in sword and sorcery usually are there for sex appeal or just eye candy. It also can focus on the main character more personally.

Just kind of came across and looked into these two fantasy sub-genres, and I can't decide what I like more. I've always loved fantasy everything. Books, video games, tabletop RPGs... its always been my favorite theme.

What do you like better for a fantasy setting?(if your into that kind of thing)

 

[Saelune]

Why not both?

My DnD campaign Im running uses both. An evil manis threatening the world. The inital motivator was revenge (since the villian crossed the party) but now it is for the sake of protecting the world (only one member of the origional party remains). There is revenge, wizards, good vs evil, e.t.c.

Im not really seeing the big difference between the two. Then again...metal apparently is seprated by anything from topic, to how much death is mentioned to what string they play. (metal has too many sub genres)

 

[TheEldestScroll]

well let me put it this way. some main examples of the two would be lord of the rings as high fantasy whereas conan the barbarian is sword and sorcery. they are both fantasy, but there is a big difference between the two.

and i agree about metal, but i don't listen to it.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I always though they were both the same, cause if you throw in magic of any kind its (almost) always some all life threatening evil.