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I am having a go at writing a Fantasy Epic but outside of Lord of the Rings I have no knowledge of the genre so I am wondering what do Fantasy Fans like reading? I imagine it's some of the following:

- Interesting and unusual creatures that are original enough to inspire interest

- An exciting story in unfamiliar lands that have enough detail to be believable

- Main characters we can identify with facing extremely mentally, physically and emotionally challenging dangers and situations.

So, specifically what are people's favorite fantasy books or series and why? (or if you don't like the genre why not?)

I usually read it for the violence, magic, and Dark Elf sex, but a creative plot is always nice.

Stray away from cliches and other annoyances, like:

• Black and White Morality
• Races that are "always chaotic evil"
• Using the word "sentient" to refer to human-like races.
• Explicitly stating that the use of a certain type of magic isn't evil, only to have all people who use that form of magic be unambiguously evil.

Here are some things I would personally like to see in a Fantasy story:

• An alliance between humans and orcs. Let's face it, the way orcs are portrayed in most fantasies, they have more in common with real-life humans than Elves do.
• A dragon mage. Yes, shouting in Skyrim was supposed to be a form of magic, and in most settings, dragons are said to be practitioners of magic. So, why don't we ever see more than just fire or ice breath?
• Draco-lich. That is all.
• Were-bears. No were-sharks or were-alligators, just were-bears.
• A vampire swordsman. Yes, I get that they are powerful mages and crafty assassins, but I want a fucking vampire swordsman. Kiel_Farren's character Fang is the closest thing that's ever come to sating my appetite for such a character.
• Hidden: A medical mage who shows himself to be a powerful healer, only to reveal later that he was actually an assassin specializing in medical sabotage, who would infiltrate a camp by shaping his body to look like that of the camp's medic and then using magical weaves to heal all of the infirmed soldiers' wounds, only to undo the weaves when given a special signal, causing the soldiers to return to their previous injured states.

I'd agree that grey areas are often necessary for depth in a story where you're going for compelling conflict.

I'd argue that it depends on the orcs and your view of humanity, but I have wanted to see that alliance before, and I have actually seen it a couple times. Briefly. WoW comes to mind. (Honest-to-God dragon mages do exist, they're just rare. Actually, one of my RP characters has a dragon buddy who uses mostly lightning, ice, and wind "magic":P No fire breath.) Draco-lich is, indeed, a thing and a good thing that is ... surprisingly rare. The only were-bear I've ever seen was in The Hobbit.

Thanks. I was contemplating having him participate in an actual sword-fight in one path. (Also, vampire swordsmen do exist, but again, they're rare. The only one that comes to mind was in a ... pretty god-awful movie.)

I've contemplated that last idea of yours many times. Maybe because this: Link is a favorite trope of mine.

For ... what?

Wheel of time series.

- Amazing detail, plot, character changes. Starts with a blacksmith apprentice, a troublemaker, and a sheep herder. Ends with, well, I can't tell you that without spoiling it.

- High fantasy. (a completely made up world rather than reusing this one)

- A definite 'good' and a definite 'bad' sides to the story, but there is often that blur between 'good' and 'bad, especially towards the end. 

- Different cultures, what cultures are based on. Example; Aeil - based off of 'honor', Seanchan - based off of the enslavement of people who can cannel (do magic), A-name-I-can't-remember-how-to-spell - based off of kindness and not harming anyone, even in defense of your life or your families.

- Prophecies, but when they are carried through, done in a way the makes sense but no one thought of.

- 'Old tongue' a language that is mostly forgotten, but when used, adds a bit of a mysterious aspect or boldness (depending on where it's used)

- A big difference in how magic was used. Something origional.

- complex plots, thick with political maneuvers and battles by expert generals.

              Other than the wheel of time previously mentioned.

                Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

                         . An amazing storyline with hidden agendas, and strange loyalties and many good characters. (Although one could argue he had way too many characters.)

                         . He killed off many of his characters, which made the reader feel the loss of a loved character and be more emotionally attached to the story.

                         . Again having races whose society was based on an aspect. Seguleh whose society and government was based on who was the best fighter. 

                         . Not having it black and white

                 George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

              -The whole killing off characters thing

             - A major storyline and none of the players know what the others will do.

             - Again the not everything is black and white. Tyrion for example.

             - A massive world-wide threat that no one is paying attention to (excluding the watch.)

If I may ask...  What was the world-wide threat in A Song of Ice and Fire?

@jaryeth

I haven't read them, but I think the zombie thing?

White walkers

Ah...  Thanks guys.

Thanks for your feedback guys, I've made a check list of what to try and include and hopefully my Fantasy Story Game will be a decent read, or at least not so bad people cover their eyes and try to "unsee" it :D

If you choose to have magic, don't make it "all good". One thing that made Conan awesome was that most (if not all) of the "wizards" were evil.

Thanks Malk and will do. I'm not sure if it's magic but the supernatural stuff is both good and bad :)

As it should be. Any story that makes supernaturally powers either totally good or totally evil is ... usually boring or narrow-minded.

Haha, I'm not sure if it will have enough depth to satisfy everyone but it is a multi-story branch story with puzzle and romance elements. Hopefully I can get it finished in the next month or two, I did ten hours writing last night so I'm pretty tired now :) But the supernatural powers all have their own agendas and they all feel justified in doing the right thing so eventually the reader will have to decide which he prefers.

Now that would certainly be a change. A fantasy hero who saves the world through his investment banking skills.

xD I'd read it.

Oh, we got an advance at work that's almost that.  except no fantasy element, other than wish-fulfillment.

It's about a guy who's really good at picking stocks.  So good, that the government secretly recruits him to use his stock-picking skills somehow or other to locate terrorists.

And then he leads a strike team to fight the terrorists.

Why do they insist on making the token female an archer?  I guess because that way she doesn't get hit, because hitting girls is wrong?

Sexism! xD Either no one gets beat up or everyone gets beat up! (... It's because it's fantasy. The women have to be pretty. You can't beat up a pretty woman because bruises aren't pretty. This is also the reason you almost never see female dwarves or orcs or goblins or any female anything not considered sexy.)

A lot of people assume that. Which is weird. Historically, there were actually a lot of female warriors. Can I name some off the top of my head? Not ... really, because you generally have to dig just to find them. Female warriors exist more in the fantasy genre than any other media, from what I've seen. They say we've come so far in equalizing genders and races and so forth, but people can't get over their preconceived notions and false facts.

Boadicea. 

Also, female archers are impractical- longbows take massive strength, you have to practically be trained from birth to use one, and they cause marked skeletal deformation. (At least, that's what archaeology says.)

Tomoe Gozen. Took me a minute to remember her name, haha. And on that note, thinking of a weapon I'd honestly associate with women specifically... it'd be the naginata: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naginata

Edit: And my mom has a crossbow, so ... *shrug*

A story game about women Samurai would be epic... Dibs.

Dammit! xD I should've called it ... except that I have like, fifteen ideas in the works and I'm way too busy. *sigh*

In all seriousness, that actually does sound like a good idea. (I might also be a bit of a Sengoku Basara fan, maybe. >.>)

Good, because my last good idea was an archer Mage, but then I realized it would take forever to make.

Well, you have my support if you're really gonna try this.

Recurve bows.

If there is a "dark chick" on the villain side, you'll usually see a cat fight between her and archer girl.

About the only fantasy movie/tv example I can think of off the top of my head where there was a knock down drag out fight between a guy and girl is in Game of Thrones where the Hound and Brianne spent a good amount of time punching the hell out of each other and kicking each other in the crotch.

I'm not really a fan of dark gritty anti-hero crapsack worlds.  (probably because I'm not nineteen any more.  sorry, that was mean.)

To some extent, most fantasy is at least a little bit about the idea that there can be heroes, and epic quests, and the wish-fulfillment of knowing the difference between right and wrong.

That said, I really like The Witcher, and Dragon Age. 

Agreed, mostly. I do like gritty and dark sometimes, but ... fantasy is, at its core, about wish-fulfillment. (>_>' Gee, that ... has some horrifying implications for me when applied to The Other World.)

-Realistic use of weapons (You cannot block a battle-axe with a sword without breaking your arm)

-Unique races

-If a race is much more powerful than the other races, there should be a realistic why they're not in charge

-A sport adds so much color to a fantasy setting (Even a different version of chess)

-There should be a realistic reason mages are not in charge

-People should die

-I'd love a game where instead of a dragon, there is some giant sea creature

-Bar fights

-Duels of Magic and/or weapons

To that first one: ... How do you know you can't, though? Genuine question.

(xD Wait, you want realistic weapons and magic?)

... Obviously, but I'm suggesting that magic and magic weaponry tend to go hand-in-hand. Anyway, sure, he can argue that point for himself if he wants to, but it's fantasy. People tend to be forgiving of twists on realism for a reason.

I'm going for realism in the fight scenes. Rather than have weird scenes like Legolas and Gimli having a competition to kill 40+ orcs the fairly inexperienced main character will be doing well if he can kill one hostile creature in a fight and the reader will have his hands full trying not to get killed. I'm going for a medieval interpretation of the battles that don't involve magic and those battles were bloody, I remember reading in 2012 some archeologists dug up the remains of King Richard III who was killed in battle and they 8 cuts, slashes and stabs just on his skull... battles aren't as fun as they look in the films :)

You know what Will? Forget about writing Fantasy, it's all pretty silly anyway what with all the orc and elf nonsense.

Write a sci-fi story instead filled with lumpy headed mono cultured aliens that otherwise look human, techno babble, and call the roguish hero Blaze Johnson who has sex with every alien chick on every planet until he settles down with the galactic overlord's daughter Thysa Kimbo who runs around in strategically placed triangles and circles for clothing.

:P Says the man who has four of the fantasy 'featured' slots.

... But that's irrelevant, Bucky. Endmaster chose to put them in fantasy and they were acknowledged as some of the best of their chosen genre. Just because you can have sex in Death Song doesn't make it a Love & Dating game.

Wait... you can have sex in Death Song?

The Bard mentions in his letters to home that he has sort of a long distance relationship with a traveling merchant girl he meets occasionally.

He sexes up a prostitute if he becomes a mercenary.
He gets with a few vampire girls if he joins the vampires.
He even sometimes marries a halfling woman if he abandons everything.
 

I can't remember if he always does that or not if he just runs away from everything in the early part of the war.

EDIT: He doesn't, if he leaves the mercs really early he just goes back home and works the farm until he gets drafted.

It was the first one I got.

Don't forget about the Necromancer's sister! 

... Of course you can cross genres, like RomCom. Nevertheless, an element of humor in a game does not make it a comedy. Necromancer reads as more of a fantasy game to me and evidently, Endmaster agreed enough to put it there. Considering he wrote the damn thing, I would think he'd know, but ... whatever. *shrug* I didn't write it, so if you think it ought to be moved, either talk to him or to the mods.

>_>' You are joking, aren't you? Eternal wasn't even remotely close to being "love & dating" focused.

The only one I'd want moved into the Romance/Love section is Love SICK for lulz.

xD YES!

I can just picture someone new to the site, sifting through the stories, looking for some sweet and sappy story, and blindly clicking their way into that thing.

Hahaha, go for it

I don't have much knowledge of Fantasy but I don't like Sci-Fi if it's space fantasy and only slightly better if it's an ideological fantasy but only if it's well done. Asking people to share their fantasy fantasies has made it very clear very fast I'm not going to make everyone happy but I'm really enjoying what I'm writing so far and I'm tackling the first big battle scene tonight to kill off a few characters so that should be fun :D I do like the strategically placed triangles for clothing idea for the female lead though, particularly if indecent exposure differs radically from the norm :D

It's the best way to go but I'm also interested to see if I can write a 7/8 rated story game :) 6/8 seems to be my limit atm :P

@Will11 It's def the genre. XD

"your stories are great, but they're too educational."

But I'm an Unromantic Fan-Fic hater who never reads Sci-Fi, can't see the point of School stories and hasn't picked up a Fantasy book since Narnia :D

Still Fantasy is quite fun now I'm getting into it and I'm working on a Jack the Ripper meets Sherlock Holmes story that I should be able to pass off as a Puzzle/Mystery or even a Horror...

A thing I especially love in fantasy is seeing a regular teen figure out that they are really a fantasy creature or that they have powers.

@will11 I will give you my trophy for a ripper game. (Shameless ripper fanboy)

have you seen murder by decree? 

Hmm, shouldn't Holmes be in fanfic? XD 

If it's good ^_^

(you can't just have a guy with a knife who's down on whores. XD )

Can it be a cat-based JTR fic?

. . . Are you joking?

Or do you mean like disneys Robin Hood?

or the unholy amalgamation of jtr & wc?

That sounds interesting :) The reader is a Holmes-type Victorian era detective but I haven't used any of the characters or mysteries from the Holmes series. Unfortunately the Ripper story is on hold at the moment because I can't seem to access the site I'm using for my Ripper research, I'm hopeful I can get it written and published by around August or September :)

See, if it was a Holmes story you'd get nates trophy too.

what do you want to know? I know everything about the ripper.  Except the identity of the whorekiller. But frankly, that's unimportant.

I agree Sethaniel, a mystery is much for fun when it's not solved, though like everyone else I've got my own most likely suspect and about 4 or 5 others I consider as decent possibilities, the reader gets rewarded if he uncovers enough evidence to make a strong case against any one suspect. As for the information I'm learning everything: where people lived, who the victims lived with, the details of their personalities, private and previous lives, every witness's name and information, a dozen of the most interesting letters and clues, especially the clues, there was so much stuff found at the murder scenes and later that could have been a clue, there are a few frequently over-looked little clues which I think are decisive evidence if they can definately be linked with one or more of the suspects. It's also amazing how many people claimed to be the Ripper at the time when drunk but were quickly disproved, I'm going to include some as red herrings though perhaps there might be a genuine confession in there somewhere...?

That said personally I think the Ripper was a giant tabby cat :D That could be an interesting twist to the story.

Meowntague Druitt, or Aaron Catzminski? XD

... *blink* I would actually love to hear everything you know about JTR.

Ah I don't want to give away details but personally I find it hard to believe that Druitt was the Ripper. The day after Nichol's death he wa several hundred miles away playing cricket, later on the day of Chapman's death he was again in another cricket match and the day after Stride and Eddowes were killed he was in Dorset again representing a client in court. I am also particularly impressed that he managed to commit more murders after his suicide, if the string of post 1888 murders were also the work of the Ripper. As for Kosminski... there were several other "mad Polish Jews" as the police charmingly referred to them kicking about London around that time who are just as likely or unlikely to be the Ripper as him and at least four known serial killers living in the London area :) It's a tricky one :P

While I'v read both WOT and A song of ice and fire, I don't really feel like that's what I'd want for a choose your adventure game. 

While I love good word building and story, I don't really mind of the land and world is a little clitche as long the characters themselves are well written and belivable. If I were to think of a book that do this I'd name "Heroes Die" by Matthew Stover. The world at first might not seem like it's very original, filled with elves and mages but the character drives it all forward. The only other example I can think of right of the bat might be Mass effect 2 (I have no idea if you've played it) It's not the one with the best story of the trilogy, but it's still my favorite due to all the characters and how complex they are. 

So yeah more character driven instead of the big plot. I don't need to save the world or anything like that, just a struggle and good characters. 

I personally don't like loads of over powered magic. I like how it is in ASOIAF where magic is pretty scarce, but you know it's there and that it can seriously fuck you up.

Here are some examples of awesome fantasy books (that I like) and what I want in a fantasy epic ga,e

Some awesome books:

1:Schooled in Magic series

2:The Name of the Wind

3:Mistborn

4: The Sorcerers Ring

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What I want in fantasy epic game:

- A way to act both evilly and good in the story 

-  Some kind of magic system (the books I presented up top have some good examples)

- A well introduced villain. Don't just have him be 'MUAHAHAHA IM GOING TO RULE THE WORLD' set out a good backstory to him and the same for the heroes (or villains again I would like to become evil and rule the world myself MUAHAHA XD )

Love Brandon Sanderson's books. (especially mistborn) He comes up with such a unique way to use magic.

Another series of his is the reckoners series. It is a superhero kind of thing, but it is still really good.

I think what really makes up a lot of fantasy stories is the relations between characters. LOTR-fanboys squeal about how 'awsum' Aragorn is while I think it's really the conversations between Gimli and Legolas, Sam Gamgee and pretty much anybody, etc that really makes the books shine. The idea of fantasy is typically a group of people from very different backgrounds who get together for a common goal (usually to save the world) and I think that's a big part of Fantasy stories (though it definitely plays a role in all genres) overall-- how they all get along. 

Favorite Fantasy series is probably Guardians of the Flames for that reason. Lots of fun, interesting characters that actually have things to talk about. The series has a good deal of badass action scenes as well, but it all boils down to what's going on at home (that's like a triple entendre hahaha).

Of course, the direction the story goes determines how much that can actually happen. Not all fantasy stories are about adventures, but I think that the interaction between the MC and the side-characters (and even the SC's discussions amongst themselves) is an important dynamic in nearly all fantasy stories. 

Be original

Allow readers to play villainously or heroically (or even in between)

Try to avoid excessive cliches

I agree about the orc/human alliance idea that was tossed around, after all, elves are nature lovers, dwarves live underground but humans and orcs are both surface dwelling races that are VERY bad for the environment

Unless you want the player to build custom characters then give the player a detailed background, either way give NPCS backgrounds

Think the details through

^ And if they have to play heroically, at least allow them to be asswipes from time to time. The best part about Half Life was that the game's story made Gordon Freeman out to be the greatest, most goodly hero who ever lived, even though you can make him spend his free time pissing off the npcs by pushing random buttons around the lab, pissing around with physics, and other trollant dick moves.

Nasty, dirty, primal elf sex.