[The Darklord]

Thats my question, which do you tend to prefer? either for role playing or reading or whatever.

[mwknowles]

Hi there Darklord;

Medium-high fantasy i think - im not that great on the concept of using magic to do the dusting or repairing holes in shirts (which some books and games have) but the "oohhh arrrrhhhh" powerful prevalent magic is my tastes!  My tastes in games are:

RP:   ADD/D&D, Warhammer
Comp:   DDO, Oblivion (Elder Scrolls in general), NWN1 and 2

The one thing ive always had trouble in accepting is mixing Sci-fi with magic - doesnt really work for me.

[Scaryfatmaniffer]

Lowish - I have always been inspired by the mysterious, the dark, the unnatural.

Robin of Sherwood - the old paperback RPG maelstrom, the worlds of Dragon Warriors and also warhammer fantasy roleplay (though the fact that this is an offshoot of the battlesystem means that many races are too prevalent for my tastes).

I like the fact that magic and the supernatural could all be bollocks. If you think about many of our mysteries in our own world (ghosts, aliens, cryptozoology, conspiracy theories, miracles etc), that we try to explain with science what if they were all real - what if?
This still leaves a huge scope for the unbeliever...

What do you really see when someone shadowbolts someone? (I picture this as someone chanting a load of guff (think latin, aramaic or simply an evangelical speaking in tongues), and then perhaps a sense of unease, a feeeling that something has streaked past you that you couldn't see but ... and then the victim falls - no discernible marks)
What has happened to them? - How do illusions work? were they shadowbolted or did they suffer a brain haemmorhage.
People should have the belief or lack of to make interpretations?
Think of Stephen Hawking arguing with Billy Graham over creation - both have a valid argument with almost equal justification - both have to , in the end rely on faith rather than 100% evidence.

I think it's nice to have a system where things exist that are not natural - why do you think I have spent so long with the magic rules but... it is also good to have a way in which these could be explained by a non-believer (usually!).
Example: a vampire - tall pale man with fangs - although only the magic weapon appeared to harm it - in the melee no one could be certain what did or didn't perhaps he was armoured or that the guy with the "magic" weapon struck harder or more accurately.
Completely low fantasy makes healing long and difficult, combat excessively lethal to be usable, and removes so many lovely plot ideas.
High fantasy on the other hand can easily end up being placed in the cheese counter at Tescos.

Sadly I often feel that players who have experienced much high fantasy and LARP at big systems (most notably Lorien Trust) feel the need for a surfeit of the unnatural to keep their levels of excitement.
Often players visibly twitch when there is no combat or naked threat to the party - and indeed lack subtlety in character design.
Why the need to play a badgerman? or a halfdragon or a child turning slowly into a ghoul?
How about a scribe who is dyslexic, a short sighted ranger thrown out of another community?, an ex gladiator wishing to set up a zoo? Equally wierd, far more surfacely normal - far more chance to roleplay.
Several times players from the beastkin have said come and join us at the gathering - I have always replied something akin to "growl a lot, drink heavily, fight and shag! - Why do the gathering? I'll play the same role in Ibiza and get better accomodation and weather"
If you want to ROLEPLAY choose something that you can roleplay 100% of the time when nothing exciting is happening.
Lowish fantasy for me - wish players would feel happy happy with this genre too and appreciate more how it works. This isn't a grumble more of a chance to get people to think deeply about the hobby.

[Elmyra]

I’m more of a high fantasy girl with possible medium fantasy tendencies! I will fully admit this one. To me role-play has been always about being someone or something else, and yes you get that with low fantasy, but in my perspective not with as greater choice and vibrancy.
When you play you human with x flaw or x reason for being you are trying to create the excitement of role-play, so what is so odd about wanting to be an elf or orc or beastkin, or even (and I go the more bizarre here) half fae vampire from out of space etc etc etc. yes its unnatural, but so is wanting to slice up baddies on a regular basis. It does have slight undertones of playing a bunch of psychos willing to kill for no other reason than the thrill. But the whole point of role-play is escapism so we can let that one fly!
As for the more chance to role-play. I feel that depends more on the ability of the role-player than the actual character they are playing. Example; with my beastkin in uzzzzzzz (the LT group) I don’t think I have ever had a huge problem role-playing as her, yes she is a simple character and she gets in peoples faces far to often, but because of that I have gotten some decent role-play out of her, simply because I enjoy doing so. People know the character and being a beastkin has never hindered any confrontation or conversation. I feel like I can role-play 100% of the time with her regardless of weather there is a fight, talkie plot or just sitting around doing nothing.
It really is all about growling, shagging, drinking and fighting. The role-play comes from something as simple as that, and I would get sunburn in Ibiza, I’m too fair skinned and also I don’t like the food!
I don’t find it unusual that people prefer playing one thing, if that’s what they are comfortable doing, although sometimes it is good to step over of the safety barriers and play something completely foreign to them. It does everyone good, I mean if we all didn’t go “ah what the hell sounds like fun” none of us would be roleplayers anyway.

[asamoth]

Personally my preference between the two is mostly dependant upon mood, there are times when low fantasy really appeals and times when high fantasy appeals more. Let’s see if this analogy works as way of an explanation, low fantasy can be a nice thick stew with plenty of dumplings, while high fantasy can be a big chunk of double chocolate cake. There are times when stew and dumplings would be perfect, its cold, its wet and I am starving, then there are other points when you want something sweet and rich. In between these points are various other ‘flavours’ of the fantasy genre, which also have there places and appeal, in my case I would rather not say no to the choccy cake always and live purely on stew, nor would I desire a diet just of cake. Basically each style has its own merits and strengths and each style has various novels and systems to back them up, allowing a glimpse into someone else’s imagination.

At Mr Knowles commented, its hard to remember good examples of mixing science fiction with magic that really work, I would say Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X work as examples as well as the Pern novels though the latter is really just science fiction, it does manage something of a fantasy feel to my mind.

To Chris’ comment in regards to the need to play a badgerman, there isn’t one. But if you are going to play a Beastman, then you have all the fun of working out that characters background, motivations, objectives speech and thought processors ect. In the badgerman example, how did you come about, are you a ‘natural’ race, a failed experiment, a druid trapped between forms perhaps? The lists of possibilities are only really limited by the system and the player’s imagination. Properly thought-out and worked though a strange race character can be just as deep and rewarding as a human character can be. The worst version, in my opinion, are people that pick a strange race for some reason then don’t attempt to roleplay any different from a normal human. With Illyria this was highlighted a while back by the number half-ogres that just had extra strength and hit points when compared to the human warrior sat next to them, without any of the social issues that should have been part of the character being considered.

It is definitely true the accommodation would be better in Ibiza and the weather should certainly be, as for the toilets… Let’s leave it at that. I would argue that the music at the gathering could be considered a bonus, but that is just personal taste, plus there are a few people present that are also interested in roleplaying. Equally, one could wander around the town centre roleplaying as William Bull, taxidermist, or Hugh the antiques dealer in a night club, though personally it isn’t a path I really want to go down, I would rather have other people playing the same game as me.

There are several low fantasy plots I would like to try running though I don’t think most of them would be applicable to the normal ‘Wednesday night’ characters. Currently there seems to be a lot of high plots underway which in turn need suitable characters to interact with them.

So in conclusion, I like both for different reasons and sometimes have a preference for one or the other, but like most things that is changeable depending on mood and desire at any given time.

[The Darklord]

Interesting responses - I knew you would'nt let me down - though there are still a few (well quite a few actually) people I would love to hear from on this.

In truth I have come to the conclusion that in some ways it dosent matter to me wether a game is high fantasy or low - what matters is the quality of the experience. I'm not being clever or original with this, its probably what most people tend towards I guess.  I certainly have low fantasy leanings because I like magic to be strange, unpredictable and dangerous.  As has already been said on here, if you use magic to darn socks then it becomes ordinary and kinda less magical.

That said high fantasy done well can be fantastic (old timers remember the eldoria event?).

As for the badger man issue(TM), I think its a white elephant ( ), people who are not interested in creating "real" characters often go for strange races its true but so do people who want to explore totally alien psycologies as much as is possible given that under the makeup they are still really human.  I would rather interact with an orc that is well played  than a human whos player just couldnt be botherd. What does really bug me is the "bigger better faster more" mentality in some high fantasy games - you know? Races available for PC's might be: humans elves dwarves, orges and thats it, but someone will still whinge when he cannot play his half demon, drow treeman assasin. 

Ultimately I like a world, weather its in a book or a game or whatever to have a real flavour of its own - this is risky, it might not be to everyones  taste and more work is required of the players to get to know it but at least its not bland mush which is what you get with every idea available thrown in.  I can walk around in Elrics the young kingdoms or Robert E Howards Hyborian Age, Untill I was 12 I thought I actually might have come from Middle Earth, but you know what?  I couldnt even tell you what the fogotton realms from AD&D tastes of.

[Scaryfatmaniffer]

I have to back up the Draklord on the nature of the world and the level of experience the player gets. I don't desperately mind odd character types but they do seem to often be a cop out for people who want their roleplaying to be shallow. (remember old timers how Bill could justify anything with his wierd and perverse logic).

Playing an orc, dwarf, vampire etc. can have great roleplaying potential but the danger is getting focused on one facet of the character.
Take my half humorous gripes at the LT beastkin idea (and before you say it - yes LT requires characters that are fairly shallow) - There are no complex relationships, wrestling with difficult issues, making and breaking friendships, making moral judgements based on the character's perceptions - eat, drink, shag and fight is their all.
It's shallow - and yes the Draklord is right - if that is all that you can manage then it probably is safer than playing a human warrior that does just the same.
Equally powergamers miss the point of the hobby - certainly as I intend it.

It's a story! - the progression of the story is the main focus not the progression of their character. Don't get me wrong these are not mutually exclusive points at all but when a player threatens the story with their powergaming and does not realise it that is when we have an issue. It's not about you as an individual its about you as a group identity.

Back to world's that influence me - places I could really be and believe in - usually dark and nasty.

Dragon Warriors - (old RPG system in paperback of the 1980's)
Robin of Sherwood - long running Tv series
Warhammer fantasy roleplay (without the excess of common races)
Maelstrom - (another RPG system from the 1980's - system was pants but the setting was ace.)
Parts of Ad&D ravenloft but not the explannation or indeed the whole realm.

[asamoth]

It is interesting that you have these deep insights into a group of roleplayers, playing characters, you personally have never seen. The depth or lack there of, of a character within LT is up to the individual, there are players at the events that have been attending for 10+ years as the same character, this would infer that over a period of time such as that they would have developed a certain degree of depth even if it was lacking at conception. Equally there are players that write up massive personal histories as well as group histories, this can include someone I know that worked out the plant and animal life upon an island as well as linguistics, terms and sayings for the isles population, creation myths, racial caste systems, enemies etc.

Some of the comments made remind me a little of the first Shrek movie, because the surface of a character is a drunken, brutish, sex crazed, eating machine then that is all the depth there can be, pretty much like the perceptions of ogres in the aforementioned movie. My character does have a little depth, relationships with other characters be they positive or negative, loyalties and a moral code of his own, beliefs (admittedly wrong ones such as dwarves evolved from badgers). I will admit there is little in the way of angst laden internal conflicts over difficult issues, as the character is meant to be dim and tends to attempt to solve issues using the simplest and most direct method possible.

Power gaming, godmoding, minmaxing, munchkins etc tend to damage games if done intentionally or unintentionally, as it makes life almost impossible for the GM to manage encounters that are likely to be challenging for a normal character without being a cake work for the power gamer. Its true many people choose strange races so that they can get some kind of edge, though personally that has never been my reasoning for going for something unusual. I try and pick something that will be interesting firstly for me to play and ideally interesting for others to interact with, hence playing a character with a low intelligence, it can often be a catalyst for roleplay. There is nothing worse than a collection of dark mysterious characters sat around in the shadows, brooding and not interacting with each other. There characters might be deeper than mine and better thought out, but it hardly leads to better roleplay if they don’t interact with others.

There are a wide variety of novels and films with concepts I would love to use. Wizards First Rule with the three nations, The Primal Forest novels, Running with the Demon, Neverwhere, Dagger Spell (the west folk being an excellent way of slipping elves into a lowish fantasy setting) the list is almost endless and pretty equally dispersed between high and low fantasy to be honest. A bigger problem can be finding others that understand the concept and that the concept appeals to, to make them useable. 

[Scaryfatmaniffer]

Indeed!

I have done enough Lt to allow myself a generalisation or two - and generalisations by the very definition are just that.

I am not trying to say that LT does not have good roleplayers far from it (after all I used to go )

but... the system sadly does not lend itself to deep and meaningful - and there is a huge difference between a deep well acted character and a dark mysterious fool who sits in a room being dark and mysterious.
Take for example the friendly helpful herbalist who after nine months happens to go ballistic because his friend gets murdered - take Russel's psychotic woodsmen who played on several linears as a happy go lucky chap until somebody pissed him off in just the wrong way. Suddenly happy chappy was swearing at 140 decibels ripping mens heads off and calling 18 bloodrage.
I may have been unfair to the beastkin but they appear to epitomise the L.T ethos of shallow roleplaying if I'm wrong there are three possible reasons.

1) Lack of personal first hand experience (most likely in all fairness, but not borne out by many of the OOC chats I hear between players.

2) Their image lends itself well to a well known group that can be a scapegoat for my LT frustrations

3) Our perceptions of depth, or our position on how the hobby actually evolves may just be widely different.

[Scaryfatmaniffer]

Sorry if I appear to be ranting - I think we have certainly digressed from the point of fantasy high or low on to depth of character, in characterness etc. etc.
I feel very strongly about the hobby (hence I run events when I am tired, knackered, depressed, got other stuff to do etc.), to the point where I was prepared to buy a house with land and develop a site for my hobby. Everyone will have to acknowledge that requires a certain level of commitment!
Now when I make statements that are high handed it is not through a need to berate others, but simply to try and show another level of the hobby.
I do not ever intend to come over the old games guru - but when people play characters with little depth and background, when they miss out the day to day beauty of their character, when they lose the subtlety and intricacy of what the hobby could be, it reminds me of a man grubbing for nuggets of gold in a river, and ignoring those who are trying to give them a map to Fort Knox.

and yes I am making generalistic comments because it is not productive to name and shame (and yes there are times when it is necessary to make OOC comments - I accept this), but I can quote countless times when players have gone OOC because "they have nothing to do" or "nothing's happening".

Needing to call Time In at the wolf strikes me as sad - why do people miss out on the priceless experience of walking in to the Inn in character? I know it may take a little more effort but surely it's worth it. Character backgrounds are the same - have talking points in character, have views on issues, surely it's more interesting to have the gay rights activist or national front candidate in the local pub spouting viewpoint than someone furry crawling round the floor trying to bugger the landlord's golden retriever.
and yes I know this is an exaggeration but the point is ...

[The Darklord]

As we seem to be mentioning lt a lot I thought I would butt in, I think its kindof misleading to say the lt system lends itself to shallow ill concieved characters - in some ways its a nice little adventure/battle system which is certainly fairly low fantasy at least for un specialled characters - and thats all it was ever intended to be in the early days.  Yes it lacks the subtlety and depth of lore of Illyrian but I really don't think any of us can blame a system for a lack within the players themselves, the very culture of an event is set by organisers and players and to be fair a system should have little to do with it.  Chris has simplified character creation for wolf nights and I don't hear anyone complaining.  Its nice if you have an elegant and plausible system that eliminates the worst powergaming tendancies but its even better if people are so absorbed in the roleplay the power gaming dosnt even feature.  (although it occurrs to me we could start a whole new thread on what exactly is powergaming).

[Scaryfatmaniffer]

but I really don't think any of us can blame a system for a lack within the players themselves,

,
I agree entirely - perhaps it is not the sytem of LT that is at fault but the set up and scale. Plot is difficult to access for new people who are not with an established group or are very forceful, and that tends to lead to the sitting around OOC drinking mentality that we have all fallen prey to which can in turn lead to creating more simple characters, just to gte something from the game.
My beastman comments (and again its not just the beastmen just a group I know well) is that LT enjoyment involves hunting and catching the main plot (similar in difficulty to catching the Golden Snithch at Quidditch), and by this I don't just mean the big scraps, or by finding something to do on the sidelines that gets you noticed.
I agree that stuff like the beastmen gets you noticed at LT, and is fun (sadly for me only in the short term but..), and unless you can get a character right in the middle of the action is probably the best thing to do.
Sadly for me - I chose the other option and gave up on going.
To me Darklord I feel it sad that it is necessary to need such a system to weed out powergamers, -

Get into the story and worry not about the rank you are doing with 2 handed mace.

[alec42]

Just to have my two penneth...

I feel that the high/low fantasy question is difficult to apply to LARP because long running systems naturally suffer from 'escalation'. That is to say, unless everyone dies with monotonous regularity, a system tends to accumulate high powered characters, who naturally attract high powered adversaries. This increase in power levels tends to manifest itself in a more magicky milieu.

A fascile example is the way LT felt the need to introduce 'artifact' weapons when silver and enchanted could no longer cut it (pun intended  ). LT of course also came up with a sensible solution to the problem, which was to restrain power inflation by making anyone who got really super powered into a DPC/NPC and thus removing them from the power market.

Our system doesn't have that many super heroes, but it's only a matter of time. I have a fairly super character on the back burner in the form of the perennial FP. I'm very happy at the moment taking the slow road developing Tim Drake the ranger, but if I ever got over my current creative block on FP I think I'd still have difficulty wandering into the inn, because I wouldn't be able to do what he would do in the circumstances - it would be too unbalanced. 

I personally have no preference as to hi versus low, but I think it starting out high may have the advantage of eliminating the problem described above. Ironically, it seems that low fantasy is high maintenance...

[The Darklord]

To me Darklord I feel it sad that it is necessary to need such a system to weed out powergamers, -

Get into the story and worry not about the rank you are doing with 2 handed mace.

I wouldnt say such a system is necessary - just pleasant, but with the right group of bods I am just as happy to run systemless - you were there when I have done so.  However for a company like LT that caters for huge events it is important to find a way of balancing the game  to a degree (though how well they have succeeded is another debate) even a smallish company that gets a widely varied clientele may need to have a system that kerbs gross abuse - for carpe fatum you can work on the ethos and culture of the group and more power to you.

Alec- you raise an interesting point about escalation ("we get semi automatics they get automatics, you're running round in a mask and jumping off buildings...") but I feel (and I'm not saying you are implying this) that its not powergaming to increase your characters abilities - its human nature to grow and change or stagnate.  Characters should face challanges that stretch them either on physical/combative levels or in terms of character development and emotional terms. And they should grow to meet those challenges.  But there are times when we all need to  man up a little bit and accept that our super character has had its day in the sun and move over - if the dark lord Anarion were back with all his former glory he would be acting very differently to how he used to - why? cos hes been there done that, and so have I. 

[alec42]

Well put. I suppose all dramatic arcs have a natural end point.

As for facing greater emotional challenges, now that you mention it I suppose that is what's going on in the wolf right now. We've never dealt with death in the way we did with Steve Silk's wake, nor have we ever tackled character romance (even of the courtly kind), nor have we ever dealt with a character with a speech  impediment.

In fact, one of my most enjoyable roleplaying moments of all time was dealing with letting Mistress Agness go  to the stake. This was a serious dilemma which couldn't be solved by the fact that we had a an ogre dishing out gangrene or a priest summoning angels about.

Perhaps the answer to escalation is to take things to the next moral/emotional level where power becomes irrelevant.