[The Darklord]

I have been thinking about fantasy fiction in general recently (and for the sake of discussion I am including role playing as fantasy fiction) about what makes it work and why it so often dosent.  What are the rules?  I am not talking about game mechanics here but about what makes a fantasy story work.

I will post some ideas on here in a while.

[The Darklord]

Rule number 1:

It has to be real

I have to be able to believe in whatever the creation is - its made up but has to be absolutely real, the characters, the setting the way things work.  This is why so much fantasy just does not work.  Middle Earth is an incredible setting because Tolkein obsessed over so much of the detail that its almost as real as history except that just happens to be made up.  Conan is such a vivid character that it dosn't matter that his capabilities are well beyond human limits because he is hyper real.

[The Darklord]

Rule number 2:

Magic should not solve everything

Think of the Lord of The Rings.  Sauron is destroyed because the one ring is destroyed right?  Surely the best example of magic solving things?  Well no, for me the whole point that is often missed is the sheer physical effort involved in getting the ring to mount doom in the first place.  From the flight from the shire there was sheer mind numbing terror (really think about being in a dark wood persued by ring wraiths for a minute, try to imagine they are real and coming for you) and the final treck across Mordor for Frodo and Sam would have been just agony.  Characters who obey pretty much the same laws of physics that apply to you and I had to acomplish this. 

Magic can all to easily become the cure all for any plot holes and dead ends fantasy encounters and thats just not a good use of something that should add flavour to fantasy but all too often ruins it. I'm not saying do away with magic all together but real characters doing real things (often involving magic) is much more satisfying. A plot should run on actions not spell verbals.

[The Darklord]

Rule number 3

Realistic combat please

I suppose this is related to rule one but is important enought to merit a mention.  It probably mainly applies to authours of fantasy more than roleplayers (though people trying to make larp combat realistic should be supported). Mary Gentle summed it up pretty well (I'm going to paraphrase) when she said something like "It doesnt matter if the character is a six foot tall talking rat but it does matter that a sword weighs this much and handles like this...".  I think the least a fantasy authour can do is research the closest real world equivalent of the type of fighting they plan to portray in thier work, especially if said fighting is going to be a main feature of their work.  David Gemmel may have had his faults but combat in his books is more convincing because you get the impression that he may just perhaps have been in a real fight once or twice in his life.  Writing about combat if you know nothing about it is just as bad as writing about police procedure or surgery if you know nothing about them either.  It lets down your work and makes suspension of disbelife harder.