Just want to throw out a couple generic, widely used structures. See if anything strikes anyone's fancy, gets any ideas rolling. Just a couple bits about styles of fantasy, stuff I thought fit in with what some people were saying at the meeting (ie. 'where magic is not all powerful' / 'doesnt break realism').
High Fantasy: is very dichotomistic. Black/white, good/evil, all/that. Examples include Lord of the Rings & Star Wars. Protagonist is clearly the good guy, posed against the seemingly unstoppable bad guys, and the whole world is at stake.
Low Fantasy: is based more heavily in reality, usually in setting only. This would include things like books about spiritual warfare (angels and demons fighting all around us) and some argue CS Lewis's stuff about Narnia.
Magical Realism: not necessarily based around a realistic setting, but the magical aspects are less surreal than others. Never suspends disbelief through the sheer power of the magic, such as Babylon 5 technomages who are written off as using technology to achieve the effects of magic.
Surrealist: just how it sounds, but may be ideal if you want to do a silly/funny/bizzarro game, or just want to do all your asset creation on an acid trip.
It's easy enough to encroach on mythic fantasy as well (a la Hercules or God of War), Quest fantasy (single objective at any cost; Holy Grail)... there are all kinds of subgenres and arguably mixable types of fantasy.
But getting an idea of whether people like High, Low, Realistic, or whatever else, can help provide a framework for further ideas, too. It's how I've been taught to think, so it helps me to go through that kind of thing. Maybe I'm alone there, but... *shrugs*
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I like this. I personally lean towards low fantasy, but surrealist sounds neat too. I don't think we need to be on acid, per se, but being perpetually baked wouldn't hurt either... as long as we can justify it eloquently come April.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'm open to magical realism too. High fantasy might be a bit too black and white, especially since one of Casey's fears was simplicity and having that concrete stance on either one side or the other, although I'm sure we could pull stuff out of it, isn't as appealing to me.
I can see that going over really well in the COSC classes. "Stu, why do you always come to class stoned?" "IASC made me do it! It's Bill's fault! I want Doritos!"
ReplyDeleteFinding a sweet spot that isn't too simple but isn't too outrageous/unrealistic may take some thought.
I do agree with Casey's thought that simplicity is a bad thing. Overcomplexity can be just as bad, but is rarely an issue, and may end up depending more on how things come through in terms of mechanics.