Elements of Historical Fantasy as a Genre

When preparing for my current GURPS Homebrew Fantasy tabletop, one of the key things I wanted to return to was a sense of verisimilitude in the campaign setting (which is just a bit over 20 years old now).  At the time (which was really just a few months ago), I didn’t really have a proper term for what I had in mind, but after various discussions/debates about George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones recently, I finally stumbled across what I was looking for: Historical Fantasy as a distinct sub-genre of Fantasy fiction.

This isn’t really all the new, but I don’t think its been conceptualized properly.  Most discussions of Fantasy fiction separate it into ‘Low’ and ‘High’ Fantasy, which is generally an assessment on how prevalent magic is in the world and the scope of the work.  By way of example, the archetypal ‘High’ Fantasy novel is the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: a group of adventurers go on an epic quest (high scope) to kill a dragon (high magic) and restore Erebor (and its fantastic treasures) to the dwarves.  Other examples include David Eddings’ Belgariad/Mallorean novels and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. In contrast, Robert E. Howard’s various Conan stories tend to be the archetype of ‘Low’ Fantasy: often, a single barbarian warrior/pirate/thief stumbles into an ancient ruin and must escape (low scope) the devolved humans or evolved apes trying to kill him (low magic).  Many of the stories include a sorcerer or two, but their magic is generally weak enough for the hero to shrug off with testosterone-fueled fury.  Other examples include Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books and the Thieves World series.

Note that I’m not using the literary definition of these terms, where the difference between ‘high’ and ‘low’ fantasy is defined more by whether the setting is an alternate reality or the ‘real’ world where magic somehow exists.  In my mind, that definition just doesn’t properly encapsulate the different themes of the two and often works at a counterpoint to the author’s intention (by way of example, Tolkien insisted his novels were set in a pre-historic Europe, but most scholars view his world as alternate enough to qualify as ‘high fantasy’).  While I’m not completely ignoring this method of classification, I find it outdated and overly focused on setting while disregarding other significant elements of story.

Historical Fantasy, by contrast, tends to mix scope and the prevalence of magic.  Using Game of Thrones as our example, the work focuses on the very human struggles of its characters (low scope) while they embark upon or become entangled in the epic struggle for control of Westeros.  Magic just isn’t available to the vast majority of the characters and can often be shrugged off by those of strong will (low magic), but major story elements are driven by the use or existence of magic, such as Melisandre’s witchcraft, Daenerys’ dragons and the presence of the White Walkers.  The key element that differentiates it as a separate genre is an attempt at verisimilitude, something fairly common in science fiction, but often ignored or given very short shrift in fantasy.

Reflected in tabletop gaming, the vast, vast majority of fantasy RPGs fall well within the ‘High Fantasy’ heading.  Every iteration of Dungeon & Dragons campaign settings have become increasingly higher in their fantastic tone and themes.  The original Greyhawk setting was somewhat smaller in scope, though magic was still very prevalent: perhaps a good comparison would be to the Thieves World series of books, just with more fantasy elements thrown in.  Dragonlance took things to a truly epic level and the Forgotten Realms expanded even beyond that.  Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer and Eberron took it to yet another level, to the point that one could legitimately wonder how normal humans had escaped a Darwinian extinction when surrounded with other sentient species with so many more significant advantages.  Indeed, looking through the breadth and depth of fantasy gaming, its a bit difficult to find campaign settings or rules sets that fall within the ‘low fantasy’ range, in part because low fantasy tends to focus on the individual, rather than the experiences of a group of adventurers.  Its really tricky playing a tabletop with just one player, after all, and not so fun to play a sorcerer in a setting where resistance is based more on how much your muscles bulge than any other factor.

Examples of Historical Fantasy in tabletop games are even harder to come by, though there is one (somewhat antiquated) example: HarnMaster (and the various editions thereof).  The authors of Harn worked hard to include historical research in their world design, to the point that the existence of magic is questionable to most and its magical denizens are mostly restricted to one island on the corner of the world (where most adventuring is meant to take place).

With that (rather lengthy) explanation of Historical Fantasy as a distinct genre of fiction/gaming, here are the elements of Historical Fantasy as I see them applied to tabletop roleplaying games in general and what I try to reflect in my own Feyworld game.  Over the next few weeks, as time permits, I’ll expand upon each:

1. Heterogeneous Cultures
2. Distinct Technology Faithful to the Setting
3. Relevance of Politics and Social Status
4. Economic Plausbility
5. Individual Stories in a Group
6. Open World, Open Stories
7. Moral Relativism
8. Verisimilitude

I’m looking forward to exploring this with you!