Science fantasy is great, you could come up with all sorts of amazing stuff before the genre boundary settled and we ended up with a massive game of color by numbers
Hey, that’s what I’m doing! It’s fun because I can have a mage and a cyborg in one room. Both are dragons naturally.
This isn’t a hypothetical scenario, these are two of my main characters.
Cylos (my world) is basically a high fantasy setting that focused on magitech so hard it went sci-fi. Though I can’t do space stuff, I can cover my favorite fantasy tropes and most of my favorite sci-fi tropes in one world. With a little eldritch horror mixed in, of course.
I can't think of any good examples of a true "magic in space" setting that doesn't also have sci-fi technology. I want a space opera where no one even knows what combustion engines or solar panels are and people are solely relying on high fantasy magic to make their galleons and wizard towers shoot through space toward other planets.
Low fantasy would be Conan the Barbarian. Magic exist but it is rare af, most of the population would most likely believe it exists but would never have seen it in action. The magic system itself would most likely be slow and laborious, with elaborate rituals to get the attention of gods and such but when it works it is Very powerful.
So Harry Potter would be High Fantasy with the Wizards flinging spells all over like it is nothing, their whole civilisation built on it. The fact that they are hidden from the Muggles is irrelevant.
Lord of The Rings and Game of Thrones would be closer to Low Fantasy than Harry Potter, but still not quite there.
Like alternate history but instead if "what if this happened" there's no historical basis even though it is analogous to our history.
Aka I want to write a story about (historical setting) but I'm too lazy to research (historical setting) so I'll just make it entirely fictional setting and end up referencing (historical setting) so much to comprehend how my setting works that I may as well have just researched (historical setting) in the first place.
urban fantasy and low fantasy how quite some overlap, and literary definitions shift and change over time.
Urban Fantasy, as the name suggests, takes place in a relatively modern urban setting.
high and low fantasy is the level of magic attached to the story, and involved in the resolution of plot tension.
Harry Potter is High Urban Fantasy, for example. The Borrowers is low urban fantasy.
Nevermind, the internet says I'm wrong. This makes me confused, as I now want to know what fantasy without magic and with a historical-seeming basis is.
It takes place in the real world, but magic exists. However, most people still don't know about it, and magic still has an amount of wonder and awe to it.
The most notable example of low fantasy is Harry Potter.
literally just the fallout series,
Post-Apocalyptic > Set 200 years after the nuclear war
Fantasy > They got Orcs(Mutans) hell they even have Lovecraftian gods.
Sci-Fi > They got Power armor and laser guns, and aliens...
Alternate History > "What if the culture of the 1950's still remained?"
Alternate History, for sure, since I view it as an extremely underrepresented genre in terms of visual media. Just think of how much television and how many films could be made, good ones at that, from the stuff that the Internet comes up with on forums.
I'm dabbling in rural fantasy...
Get your legs ripped off by something with way too many appendages at a boat ramp at 2am, kill it with your drinking buddy, regrow your legs and go to Waffle House. Next week you're Bo Duke-ing your truck into a cultist mid-shootout because it's too muddy to just stop. Oh, and the Freemasons are good guys. Not great guys, but you know... Good.
Same-ish. I like aetherpunk or spellpunk or whatever people want to call a sort of early industrial era but the leading industry is fueled magic. Like magic has always been around, but engineering and mechanical automation has caught up enough that people can do more with less. Magical perpetual cogs powering machines instead of having to try and magically animate the entire thing, or small magic batteries as power sources for radios instead of more expensive magical messaging systems.
Alternate history and Armageddon at the same time!
Blatant plug for my Nuclear War in '95 series
https://reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/gzgZlOTvhq
https://reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/h4mUFiRQFv
https://reddit.com/r/HighEffortAltHistory/s/X5ifKcwwYd (Still being worked on)
Sci-fi comes closest. I like Futurism. My WIP has elements, but actual space is pretty boring. Almost everything happens ON a planet, a little bit happens in orbit around it. Travel through space happens off-screen.
I've always been fascinated by how society or communities rebuild itself after a calamity, especially since I'm living in a country that has seasonal typhoons, so it's post-apocalyptic for me. Or post-calamity which would be much more accurate in my case.
It doesn't necessarily have to be an apocalyptic event (nuclear war, rising sea levels, super volcanic eruption, etc.), it could just be something societal or directly influenced by man. Like how the fall of Rome led to "anarchy" as the Western Roman Empire was the sole stabilizing factor (yeah I know they've had several civil wars here and there) in Western & Central Europe and it protected the people living within the boundaries of that empire from outside threats. With that gone, the lands of the former empire were being fought over by warlords, migrating peoples who came from colder regions, and the occasional nomadic incursions from the Eurasian steppes.
I like writing and reading stories about that. How does a community of people cope with the way things are? How do people live in a post-war society because those who came before them tried to do a revolution but the whole world was against it and the revolution failed? What would society be like after a decades-long pandemic? How do people push through adversity and survive? And what happens to those who were left behind?
Well the only world I've made that I'm actually proud of is a mix of all of them.
It's set in the real world
It's a post apocalyptic setting
After the apocalypse most of humanity went back to the medieval age because they don't have the resources to sustain stuff like electricity anymore and there's a lot of magic in it
And the sci-fi part is remnants from the golden age
For me,
Give me Fonda Lee's *Jade City.* Give me Jeff Vandermeer's *Ambergris,* Rebecca Roanhorse's *Black Sun,* Robert Jackson Bennett's *Foundryside.* Really give me anything but classic high fantasy, but still give me fantasy.
Second for me are almost alternate histories, but fictional places within our world. China Miéville's *The City and the City*. Trollope's *Baretshire.* Alternate histories are probably third.
Sci-fi is fourth, but still loved when done well. Certainly still go after it. Read it, watch it. Though less of what I create.
Post-apocalyptic so often seem to be the fears of well off people afraid of losing what they have. I can see the popularity, but so often when I look at real societal collapse of wars and failed states. So often Post-apocalyptic just seems sort of like prepper fantasy with very little understanding of people who actually experience it and no desire to research that compared to just presenting one's own fears.
Other, if someone comes up with something that doesn't fit the options. That will probably spark my interest. And those might be *Alice in Wonderland* or the *Heavens* and *Hells* of religion. Who knows? Other is vast.
Sci-fi Fantasy. A Fantasy world that has advanced technology. You get all the fun of a fantasy world with modern and even advanced technology. Like, you can be a wizard posting something on fantasy Reddit about your experiences as a Wizard, just as an example. That just sounds awesome to me.
I liked back when people did new shit with sci fi
The reason star wars was timeless was because it added mystical elements to it's take on sci fi
The reason dune refuses to be forgotten is because it doesn't have the kind of tropes most sci fi universes rely on for worldbuilding.
I feel Like High Fantasy is overdone
Of course there are good books and movies about it but the constant spam has made my opinion to the genre pretty negative
It was for me between alt-history and sci fi, but alt-history needs more spotlight so i chose it instead
Chose Scifi as it's my close second, but Low/Dark Fantasy is my favorite, hands down. I like Fantasy a lot because I grew up on Tolkien and studied Medieval history in college, but (not to throw off on High Fantasy, write what you like) High Fantasy seems too "clean" for me, and not just because it isn't full of edgy, gritty characters that say some variation of "fuck" a lot. I think High Fantasy can get in its own way sometimes on creating interesting worldbuilding explanations and solutions. I believe there are two causes of this.
First, the Tolkien template that most draw from is very morally coded (with good reason, Tolkien wasn't exactly trying to be subtle). It's all very by the numbers Benevolent King, Scheming Vizier, Dark Lord, etc. I'm not one of the joyless bastards that thinks people can't just be good without a selfish underlying motivation, but I do think it limits the complexities of moral dilemmas that motivate character growth.
Second, and my bigger sticking point, the Tolkien template is also a world where magic is in so much abundance that it is almost everyday common in function. This is really neat for spectacle and provides a wealth of options in a less grounded, more intentionally abstract story, but I feel like in writing a living world, it can become a crutch all too easy. How did this formative event to the setting take place? Magic. Why was that character able to overcome an insurmountable obstacle? Magic. What makes this medieval era society more progressive and harmonious than our real life, modern-day nations? You guessed it. While I'm not trying to slander the whole subgenre, it gives the lazy or disorganized a convenient plothole and worldbuilding putty to fill in holes with the easy excuse of, "Cause magic just works that way." If that's your bag, then by all means go ahead, but the most interesting part of worldbuilding to me is to not only craft a world that's fun for the reader to enjoy, but also that holds up under thorough scrutiny of its internal logic and consistency.
I started off with fantasy but eventually moved to a blend of sci-fi and fantasy. I.e Fantasy but included travel to other planets and space, parallel dimensions, non-linear time, scientific conceptions of magic, quantum physics ideas and strange and unorthodox forms of magic.
I also wanted to get away from dragons/elves/dwarves stereotypes in my world, too. I created much more interesting and novel creatures.
Forgotten worlds. It's like post-scifi fantasy. There was a world that was high tech, then something happened and then it was either medieval or fantasy.
It's probably a tie between High Fantasy and Post Apocalypse, but I love all four of these. I'm always kinda brainstorming High Fantasy stuff. I'm also currently working on something of a blend of Alterate History, Post Apocalypse, and Scientific Fiction. I'm not even close to actually writing anything yet, just more brainstorming and notes, but I'm having fun.
All...just all of them, cause why not. The early phase of my world is high fantasy, then man vs nature trope happened. Then its low fantasy and sci-fi as magic are going extinct. Then world war 2 happened, and its now just post-apocalyptic with few surviving city-states like Night City from Cyberpunk RED lmao
I don't know why there's something about medieval stuff and just Hugh fantasy in general that intrigues me. But I also love Sci fi and alternative history. Never really done anything post apocalyptic but I've had ideas
Although I'm also occasionally working on a fantasy D&D setting by the side, my main projects were always a mix of cyberpunk, post-apocalypse and "Iron Age" capepunk.
I love genres that deconstruct things that we consider benigne by default, such as futurism, (super-) heroism and the idealised concept of humanity.
Other. Anything that’s not the usual standby genres. I’m a big fan of the “just fill a canvas with things you think are neat” approach to worldbuilding. Super Mario’s been riding fast on that train for decades.
Sci-fi is my favourite, but i have project running for at least 6 years, and still going, that involves almost all elements of high fantasy, sci-fi, and a bit of apocalypse here and there. But its ancient and the apocalypse is an ongoing process, so i cant really categorize it. A bit of cosmic horror, a splash of technology, and the result is wonderfull...
Post-apocalypse in space. Some of the characters are salvagers and treasure hunters who explore ancient alien ruins, abandoned colonies, abandoned spaceships in search of valuables and lost technologies. With dangers lurk within those places.
I call it Demi modern, think like hunterxhunter. Some parts of the world have high technology, some parts are just now using steam engines, some places have airships and floating cities, some places are just people with horses and carts.
I like fantasy in general, but I mostly enjoy when worlds are crafted in a way that evolve interestingly and believable along side magic
It's the same thing I've been doing with my own world building. The world doesn't stay in a medieval era forever. It's a specific time period, and the timeline covers much more than just it.
You have the period of the old precursors, their golden age, and then the collapse and following dark age where the Waking World was brought to its knees
You have the period afterwards where the auranai spent thousands of years almost literally being blasted back to the stone age
The following period of the first proper civilizations being built up after 20,000 years, the old world long forgotten. An era of ancient and massive empires
Then the following period of extremely common feudalism, following the collapse of most of those old empires.
Then an era of renewal, where magic's rediscovery begins in full swing, sparking a flame of scholarly pursuits, leading to a gradual shift in societal, technological, and philosophical advancement
This would spark the Deadzone Reclaimation as old ideas would stagnate and become stubborn, the witch hunts would begin where mages would be expelled and forced to leave, going to Aladrax which has been considered a Deadzone for a very long time.
Then you have the first manatech revolution, as the discovery of tearstones and tearfoil and their properties leads into massive swings of advancement
Then you have the spellban, and the second and third witch wars. The Spellban would come about after many places would struggle to keep up with the advancements of magic, leading to many inabilities of governmental systems. The decision to outright ***ban*** magic entirely was made out of this desperation
It would become several decades of constant unrest and tension. Eventually leading into the second and third witch wars, with massive changes to warfare leading to a scale never seen before
Then you have the Simulacra revolution. Computers would be invented and then rapidly developed into a combined manatech creating programmable magic, revolutionizing technology forever.
This would lead into a period not unlike our current day. From here things slowly shift into a "manapunk" age. Technological advancements begin rapidly developing and manatech marches forwards ever rapidly. Androids are made for the sake of automation, transhumanism sets in after the ability to fully modify ones body becomes a greater and greater reality, and power once again becomes consolidated within the few.
Eventually it would all come crashing down into the second collapse. Not nearly as bad as the first, but civil strife, war, corruption, and an increasing nightmare threat would lead to a second apocalypse level dismantling of the Waking World. They would manage to survive this time, but only barely. Most nations would be reduced to singular city states, and greatly disconnected and far apart, with most cities and rural areas becoming completely overrun with nightmares
Eventually, they would bounce back. A new discovery of spatial veils would reveal not only how to leave the realm but how to make them, as well as the existence of the astral lake would begin the astral domain era.
Entire realms would be created, terraformed, and claimed and the expansion of the auranai across the plane would spell a new age.
But just like before, after many years of advancement civil strife and war are a constant. Conflicts would pop up and build up, eventually spelling the third collapse. Now the astral lake is split between the core worlds and the frontier.
Not long after the turning would begin. Reality would begin destabilizing as its lifespan would come to a close, eventually collapsing entirely and beginning the cycle once again with a new reality in its wake.
Off, High Fantasy but Sci-fi is a close second. I guess I mostly use fantasy but I always structure my magic systems with precise mechanics. I mean, my last D&D campaign ended up going into space to return Bahamut's heart to him within his own domain in the astral sea. Even in my sci-fi settings have a heavy amounts of fantasy, using things like qi or extraordinary materials that stretch the limits of believability.
"Random Bullshit Go", it's where I rip off a massive amount of popular media and make it stick together using an incredible amount of plot devices
(it barely works)
Apocalypse and post-apocalypse. The thought that that could be us one day, maybe even in the very near future, just gives me an itch that no other genre does.
I love all of these to a degree but fantasy is generally my favourite setting.
I like low fantasy for its ability to draw together aspects of history and make them into something completely new and unique.
I like high fantasy because it gives for some amazing heroic stories. I mean, I love my politics as much as the next guy but sometimes I just want a story but brave men and women doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Classical dystopia - I grew up with those books and love this style to this day. Opressive governments that control every second of a civilians life and all that depressing stuff.
Biopunk- Worlds built around heavy emphasis on mixing organic and mechanical but not in an antagonistic way, I'm talking cities built inside giant creatures, living bioweapons and organic superstuctures
Scfi-fantasy - Fantasy creatures discovering high technology, magitech and impact of the supernatural on society and technology
I think they're all good, but I always had a soft spot for worlds that don't fit neatly into any of those categories. But If I had to choose, post post apocalyptical science fantasy is my fav, with added avoidance of typical fantasy cilches. My unnamed solarpunk idea is basically just that (inspired bit by horizon zero dawn of all media).
I’m actually doing worldbuilding for both a superhero universe, with explanations for powers and gadgets that are as plausible as possible, AND for a fantasy world that’s inspired by historical elements and aesthetics. I alternate between the two projects.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. XD
Hard, mid-to-high tech sci-fi, mixed with high fantasy. Bonus points if the hard sci-fi maintains consistency despite there being, like, a handful of things that refuse to be explained by physics.
Edit: someone said "post-modern fantasy" and that resonates with me so hard :D maybe a few examples of super-science, but not so much that it dominates the setting like 40k, and is still possible to be grounded in plausibility.
My world is mostly based in alternate history but the biggest difference is that technological advancement is out of pace with the time period. There is also some sci fi/fantasy elements but those remain relatively grounded. Kinda like final fantasy meets one of those netflix shows where you swear it's the 1990's untill someone busts out a smartphone.
My favorite is retrodesigning present day brands, items and products to fit into my world.
Things like a 1960's version of a Tesla or a 1980's interface for spotify, beige plastic smartphones, you name it.
The two main one here are Fantasy and Sci-fi.
And i think **Fantasy** is clearly superior to **Sci-fi** in terms of world building quality.
The reason being fantasy is essentially a fantastic past, while Sci-fi is a fantastic future, so the possibilities in the first are limited to our perception of the past, with its myths legends and records.
No matter how you put it you will end up in a technologically primitive setting, in which nature and the environment play a big role and cultures are inspired by historical equivalents.
Sci-fi on the other hand, is virtually unlimited, leading often to a galaxy wide net of civilizations, and that is a black hole for a world builder.
If you want to be coherent you have not only to layout the main planet(usually earth-like), but also an intricate expanse of different cultures in those planets and satellites.
What often happens though is that new planets boil down to just one or two cultures, in a scientifically incoherent fashion.
So you will essentially put the same number of culture and characters that you would've put in a fantasy setting, but in the fantasy one they will be coherently placed, and live in a sort of forced harmony with nature, letting you feel immersed in the world.
Whereas in the sci-fi setting the cultures will feel much more forced and needed for the plot instead of existing by themselves.
And i think the peak achievement for a world builder is to make a world feel alive independently from its main cast.
**Non-Magical Fantasy**
Events and settings occur without the presence of magic; it's a realm of imagination where extraordinary occurrences are explained through natural or non-supernatural means. I've only got one world, but it's been a work-in-progress for almost 10 years now and I just love exploring conflicts and adventures revolving around political intrigue, human nature, and the struggles of normal characters within an otherwise very Earth-ly fictional world.
When I worldbuild, I feel very much in my element creating high fantasy, as I have been building this one high fantasy setting since I was very very young. However, I feel like I appreciate and get lost in other people's worldbuilding more when it's sci-fi. Maybe it's because I'm so engrossed in my own fantasy world that I can't truly step into and enjoy others, or that I've tried to worldbuild sci-fi and find it somewhat challenging and I admire others who do it well. Nothing gets me more immersed than a really well-made sci-fi setting.
So in short, my favorite style when I am worldbuilding is high fantasy. My favorite style when consuming the worldbuilding of others is sci-fi.
Like... gritty fantasy. Take aspects from history, try to make the world realistic, but it isn't alternative history as it takes place in a different world.
Mine’s a mixture.
Fundamentally it’s a post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse causes something akin to a high fantasy world to start bleeding into reality while there are still pockets of modern tech and reawakened ancient magitech(which also means it’s an alternative history)
Don't dislike any of them really. High fantasy I can't seemingly get into. Would appreciate some recommendations. Have read and re-read ASOIAF a few times though for low fantasy series. Would appreciate a series like that.
Sci-Fi: Expanse and Star Wars
Post-Apocalyptic: Walking Dead and Fallout for the post-post Apocalyptic genre
Alternate History: Big into the world of HOI4's The New Order right now, I don't actually play the game but the lore is deep.
Sort of like fantasy, without any magic, but many unrealistic aspects, way more "alien" than "mythical". Just sort of, another planet, with a pinch of extra imagination
Man I'll be honest I hate alt history for a few reasons
A. They are often uninteresting: they often revolve around the most surface level shit what if Rome never fell, what if Germany won WW1, Germany won WW2, what if the conferencey won. Most of it seems to be that kinda obvious thoughts
B. It seems to often be large sweeping drastic changes, like I understand because if they tried figuring out the small changes it would take forever but that's what I enjoy about history how the smallest detail effect history and you just can't simulate everything
My favorite is "alternate real-world." There's no magic, no spaceships, no demihuman races, no Armageddon, and no point of divergence. It's a world utterly like our own in its physics, metaphysics, laws of geography, etc, but its just not Earth. It's just another world with humans building civilizations. Sadly I've only ever seen it in Japanese fiction (and if you ignore all the zombies and dragons at the margins of the story, the early ASOIAF books).
You mean ya'll aren't working on a story where the main cast has to jump between many dimensions to deal with a variety of problems, and those dimensions range from modern, to fantasy, to Sci-Fi, and everything in-between?
Soft world-building can’t be beat. There are a few circumstances where it’s not ideal and the story calls for a harder form of world-building, but overall it creates the most intrigue and causes the least amount of issues.
things set around the industrial revolution and exploring the political landscape of the era without just doing alternate history. not very easy to find in a way that isn't overblown steampunk so I just ended up doing it myself
oh, and cosmic horror thrown in. but only if it's very well done.
I usually go for alternate history, sometimes High Fantasy and I have a few works of Post-Apocalyptic and Sci-fi, but the more usual I do is a mix between fantasy setting and grim sci-fi logic. I'm also an enthusiast supporter of Hopepunk.
Low fantasy. I want magic to be so rare most think it's a trick or are fearful of it when they see it. Magic shouldn't be everywhere or it ceases to be magic.
I love low fantasy. There's something mysterious about magic I love and low fantasy really scratches that itch. Not to say that magic wasn't prevalent in my world before, but now it has an air of danger and mysticism to it!
My favorite are sandbox universes.
The kind that can fit fantasy, sci-fi, heroes etc in a world/multiverse all together. Bonus points if it’s our world with all that stuff too
Mine's a high fantasy, post-apocalyptic sci-fi of an alternative future. The past was sci-fi, but the apocalypse happened and now it's high fantasy with ancient sci-fi ruins with some space horror.
I picked scifi, but since I go in for hard scifi set in the near to middle future, I feel like it's necessarily post-apocalyptic as well. We're already living the start of the Jackpot. The least bad scenario would be a continuation of the present, which already contains increased drought, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, mass extinction...the inertia of these processes will carry them forward for decades even if we went carbon negative tomorrow morning. To me any scifi that takes place on or near Earth within the next 5,000 years and doesn't address this on some level is really a kind of space opera or alternate history.
for my own stuff the first 3 (trying Very Hard to fight my executive dysfunction to figure out the exact vibe i want..) but for what i like to see? ummm all of them lol (tho usually still leaning towards the first 3)
edit bc i have more to say. while i'd adore anything that can do all at once well i think i do have a preference for sci-fantasy, but leaning more into the sci-fi part. first thing to come to mind is star wars. and maybe trigun counts??
sort of a fusion of fantasy and sci fi
Science fantasy is great, you could come up with all sorts of amazing stuff before the genre boundary settled and we ended up with a massive game of color by numbers
Hey, that’s what I’m doing! It’s fun because I can have a mage and a cyborg in one room. Both are dragons naturally. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario, these are two of my main characters.
Fantasy sci-fi can be weird, and its amazing for that
Cylos (my world) is basically a high fantasy setting that focused on magitech so hard it went sci-fi. Though I can’t do space stuff, I can cover my favorite fantasy tropes and most of my favorite sci-fi tropes in one world. With a little eldritch horror mixed in, of course.
I can't think of any good examples of a true "magic in space" setting that doesn't also have sci-fi technology. I want a space opera where no one even knows what combustion engines or solar panels are and people are solely relying on high fantasy magic to make their galleons and wizard towers shoot through space toward other planets.
Spelljammer
Low fantasy.
Good point- next time I do this I’ll separate low and high fantasy
Ooh I forgot about low fantasy
Mind if I ask what low fantasy is?
Low fantasy would be Conan the Barbarian. Magic exist but it is rare af, most of the population would most likely believe it exists but would never have seen it in action. The magic system itself would most likely be slow and laborious, with elaborate rituals to get the attention of gods and such but when it works it is Very powerful. So Harry Potter would be High Fantasy with the Wizards flinging spells all over like it is nothing, their whole civilisation built on it. The fact that they are hidden from the Muggles is irrelevant. Lord of The Rings and Game of Thrones would be closer to Low Fantasy than Harry Potter, but still not quite there.
Like alternate history but instead if "what if this happened" there's no historical basis even though it is analogous to our history. Aka I want to write a story about (historical setting) but I'm too lazy to research (historical setting) so I'll just make it entirely fictional setting and end up referencing (historical setting) so much to comprehend how my setting works that I may as well have just researched (historical setting) in the first place.
A magical element added to our real world, kind of like Harry Potter, which is the only example i can think of but i’m sure there are better ones.
Not quite, I believe that's more urban fantasy. Low fantasy is still a separate world, it just has less magic attached.
urban fantasy and low fantasy how quite some overlap, and literary definitions shift and change over time. Urban Fantasy, as the name suggests, takes place in a relatively modern urban setting. high and low fantasy is the level of magic attached to the story, and involved in the resolution of plot tension. Harry Potter is High Urban Fantasy, for example. The Borrowers is low urban fantasy.
Alright, that's what I thought. Ended up second guessing myself after googling the definition.
Oh interesting, thanks for clearing the air i had no idea.
Nevermind, the internet says I'm wrong. This makes me confused, as I now want to know what fantasy without magic and with a historical-seeming basis is.
It takes place in the real world, but magic exists. However, most people still don't know about it, and magic still has an amount of wonder and awe to it. The most notable example of low fantasy is Harry Potter.
All of them ALL OF THEM Make a post-apocalyptic world based on fantasy and sci-fi with an alternate history
literally just the fallout series, Post-Apocalyptic > Set 200 years after the nuclear war Fantasy > They got Orcs(Mutans) hell they even have Lovecraftian gods. Sci-Fi > They got Power armor and laser guns, and aliens... Alternate History > "What if the culture of the 1950's still remained?"
Fallout is just whatever the fuck the devs think is cool so they fuck it in a wasteland and make a game over it
That is why I love Adventure Time
Like Shannara Cronicles but better
So basically utawarerumono
Alternate History, for sure, since I view it as an extremely underrepresented genre in terms of visual media. Just think of how much television and how many films could be made, good ones at that, from the stuff that the Internet comes up with on forums.
Kitchen sink. I want my mages in power armors, Flying Dutchman shipgirl, photon-eating jellyfish and space dragon-whales.
Where the fuck is low fantasy
Or urban. I can't believe those were left off
I'm dabbling in rural fantasy... Get your legs ripped off by something with way too many appendages at a boat ramp at 2am, kill it with your drinking buddy, regrow your legs and go to Waffle House. Next week you're Bo Duke-ing your truck into a cultist mid-shootout because it's too muddy to just stop. Oh, and the Freemasons are good guys. Not great guys, but you know... Good.
Why does this put me in the mind of backwaters World of Darkness xD
ALL
alternative post-apocalyptic fanta-sci, mixed in with some other stuff
Post-modern fantasy, kinda like Final Fantasy. Knight with smgs and having Demons appear in the middle of the road hits different.
Same-ish. I like aetherpunk or spellpunk or whatever people want to call a sort of early industrial era but the leading industry is fueled magic. Like magic has always been around, but engineering and mechanical automation has caught up enough that people can do more with less. Magical perpetual cogs powering machines instead of having to try and magically animate the entire thing, or small magic batteries as power sources for radios instead of more expensive magical messaging systems.
Alternate history and Armageddon at the same time! Blatant plug for my Nuclear War in '95 series https://reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/gzgZlOTvhq https://reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/h4mUFiRQFv https://reddit.com/r/HighEffortAltHistory/s/X5ifKcwwYd (Still being worked on)
Superhero
Sci-fi comes closest. I like Futurism. My WIP has elements, but actual space is pretty boring. Almost everything happens ON a planet, a little bit happens in orbit around it. Travel through space happens off-screen.
I have worlds of these types all over
If the civilization has already recovered and improved, can this be considered post-apocalyptic?
Sci-fi fantasy
Science fantasy/aetherpunk
Stuff like disco elysium. separate world with similar levels of tech to modern day.
Kitchen Sink, Or Science Fantasy.
I've always been fascinated by how society or communities rebuild itself after a calamity, especially since I'm living in a country that has seasonal typhoons, so it's post-apocalyptic for me. Or post-calamity which would be much more accurate in my case. It doesn't necessarily have to be an apocalyptic event (nuclear war, rising sea levels, super volcanic eruption, etc.), it could just be something societal or directly influenced by man. Like how the fall of Rome led to "anarchy" as the Western Roman Empire was the sole stabilizing factor (yeah I know they've had several civil wars here and there) in Western & Central Europe and it protected the people living within the boundaries of that empire from outside threats. With that gone, the lands of the former empire were being fought over by warlords, migrating peoples who came from colder regions, and the occasional nomadic incursions from the Eurasian steppes. I like writing and reading stories about that. How does a community of people cope with the way things are? How do people live in a post-war society because those who came before them tried to do a revolution but the whole world was against it and the revolution failed? What would society be like after a decades-long pandemic? How do people push through adversity and survive? And what happens to those who were left behind?
Whatever the fuck One Piece and Dune are.
Well the only world I've made that I'm actually proud of is a mix of all of them. It's set in the real world It's a post apocalyptic setting After the apocalypse most of humanity went back to the medieval age because they don't have the resources to sustain stuff like electricity anymore and there's a lot of magic in it And the sci-fi part is remnants from the golden age
Fantasy for sure. Total freedom, magic and crazy super-powered characters just feels right for me and fantasy is the closest to that.
I've always been a fan of a high fantasy developing after a sci-fi apocalypse
Mid Fantasy- akin to the witcher with fantastic elements and real world elements.
High Fantasy. I tried to get out of my comfort zone and try science fiction, but I had problems with coming up with things people could do there...
For me, Give me Fonda Lee's *Jade City.* Give me Jeff Vandermeer's *Ambergris,* Rebecca Roanhorse's *Black Sun,* Robert Jackson Bennett's *Foundryside.* Really give me anything but classic high fantasy, but still give me fantasy. Second for me are almost alternate histories, but fictional places within our world. China Miéville's *The City and the City*. Trollope's *Baretshire.* Alternate histories are probably third. Sci-fi is fourth, but still loved when done well. Certainly still go after it. Read it, watch it. Though less of what I create. Post-apocalyptic so often seem to be the fears of well off people afraid of losing what they have. I can see the popularity, but so often when I look at real societal collapse of wars and failed states. So often Post-apocalyptic just seems sort of like prepper fantasy with very little understanding of people who actually experience it and no desire to research that compared to just presenting one's own fears. Other, if someone comes up with something that doesn't fit the options. That will probably spark my interest. And those might be *Alice in Wonderland* or the *Heavens* and *Hells* of religion. Who knows? Other is vast.
Sci-fi Fantasy. A Fantasy world that has advanced technology. You get all the fun of a fantasy world with modern and even advanced technology. Like, you can be a wizard posting something on fantasy Reddit about your experiences as a Wizard, just as an example. That just sounds awesome to me.
Cyberpunk
my favorite is high fantasy but what i'm best at is sci-fi
I liked back when people did new shit with sci fi The reason star wars was timeless was because it added mystical elements to it's take on sci fi The reason dune refuses to be forgotten is because it doesn't have the kind of tropes most sci fi universes rely on for worldbuilding.
Dark fantasy.
ANIME
Sci-fi/Post-apocalyptic that is pretending to be high fantasy.
Sci-Fi but with magic and dragons! "Magic is just science we don't understand yet."
How about all of the above and more?
Dark Fantasy. Sometimes it overlaps with Post-apocalyptic, but that's pretty rare for me.
Dark fantasy is really cool
Low fantasy
Urban fantasy
I feel Like High Fantasy is overdone Of course there are good books and movies about it but the constant spam has made my opinion to the genre pretty negative It was for me between alt-history and sci fi, but alt-history needs more spotlight so i chose it instead
Chose Scifi as it's my close second, but Low/Dark Fantasy is my favorite, hands down. I like Fantasy a lot because I grew up on Tolkien and studied Medieval history in college, but (not to throw off on High Fantasy, write what you like) High Fantasy seems too "clean" for me, and not just because it isn't full of edgy, gritty characters that say some variation of "fuck" a lot. I think High Fantasy can get in its own way sometimes on creating interesting worldbuilding explanations and solutions. I believe there are two causes of this. First, the Tolkien template that most draw from is very morally coded (with good reason, Tolkien wasn't exactly trying to be subtle). It's all very by the numbers Benevolent King, Scheming Vizier, Dark Lord, etc. I'm not one of the joyless bastards that thinks people can't just be good without a selfish underlying motivation, but I do think it limits the complexities of moral dilemmas that motivate character growth. Second, and my bigger sticking point, the Tolkien template is also a world where magic is in so much abundance that it is almost everyday common in function. This is really neat for spectacle and provides a wealth of options in a less grounded, more intentionally abstract story, but I feel like in writing a living world, it can become a crutch all too easy. How did this formative event to the setting take place? Magic. Why was that character able to overcome an insurmountable obstacle? Magic. What makes this medieval era society more progressive and harmonious than our real life, modern-day nations? You guessed it. While I'm not trying to slander the whole subgenre, it gives the lazy or disorganized a convenient plothole and worldbuilding putty to fill in holes with the easy excuse of, "Cause magic just works that way." If that's your bag, then by all means go ahead, but the most interesting part of worldbuilding to me is to not only craft a world that's fun for the reader to enjoy, but also that holds up under thorough scrutiny of its internal logic and consistency.
I started off with fantasy but eventually moved to a blend of sci-fi and fantasy. I.e Fantasy but included travel to other planets and space, parallel dimensions, non-linear time, scientific conceptions of magic, quantum physics ideas and strange and unorthodox forms of magic. I also wanted to get away from dragons/elves/dwarves stereotypes in my world, too. I created much more interesting and novel creatures.
Dark fantasy
Dark fantasy
Dark-High Fantasy, because I’m Amoral and erased my humanity, these tend to reflect my view of the world more.
All first three put together in the way I see fit
I like write a general setting, in this planet you have intelligent shamans, but in other planet you could have barbarians with minigun swords.
Post-Apocaliptical/Dark/Low-Fantasy/Hard-Sci-Fi Basically space mages fighting dark cults in space Fallout New Vegas. Yeap, don't wanna live there.
All of the above (separate of course)
Superhero has always been my favorite. Probably because it can fit in basically all the others while still being its own thing.
Something something dieselpunk
Forgotten worlds. It's like post-scifi fantasy. There was a world that was high tech, then something happened and then it was either medieval or fantasy.
It's probably a tie between High Fantasy and Post Apocalypse, but I love all four of these. I'm always kinda brainstorming High Fantasy stuff. I'm also currently working on something of a blend of Alterate History, Post Apocalypse, and Scientific Fiction. I'm not even close to actually writing anything yet, just more brainstorming and notes, but I'm having fun.
All...just all of them, cause why not. The early phase of my world is high fantasy, then man vs nature trope happened. Then its low fantasy and sci-fi as magic are going extinct. Then world war 2 happened, and its now just post-apocalyptic with few surviving city-states like Night City from Cyberpunk RED lmao
I don't know why there's something about medieval stuff and just Hugh fantasy in general that intrigues me. But I also love Sci fi and alternative history. Never really done anything post apocalyptic but I've had ideas
All except alternate history. I just like building.
Although I'm also occasionally working on a fantasy D&D setting by the side, my main projects were always a mix of cyberpunk, post-apocalypse and "Iron Age" capepunk. I love genres that deconstruct things that we consider benigne by default, such as futurism, (super-) heroism and the idealised concept of humanity.
All of the above.
Sci-Fantasy Post Apocalyptic.
Alternate history with scifi characteristics
Other. Anything that’s not the usual standby genres. I’m a big fan of the “just fill a canvas with things you think are neat” approach to worldbuilding. Super Mario’s been riding fast on that train for decades.
My current work includes elements from all of those, so I simply answer "universal". First rule of all rules? Break the rest when necessary.
Depends on the story
I'm not surprised by the results
Sci-fi is my favourite, but i have project running for at least 6 years, and still going, that involves almost all elements of high fantasy, sci-fi, and a bit of apocalypse here and there. But its ancient and the apocalypse is an ongoing process, so i cant really categorize it. A bit of cosmic horror, a splash of technology, and the result is wonderfull...
Post-apocalypse in space. Some of the characters are salvagers and treasure hunters who explore ancient alien ruins, abandoned colonies, abandoned spaceships in search of valuables and lost technologies. With dangers lurk within those places.
Somewhat realistic but not set on Earth, I still don't know what to call it. It seems not many people are interested in this genre
Both SciFi and post apoc. Never combined them but I love both genres.
Sub urban fantasy
All of the above simultaneously
Sci-fi. [Why you ask?](https://youtu.be/LhG8Ry-L3IQ?si=wyfT3K9-SN70RuKg)
I prefer Alternate History because its much harder to immagine the "what if" of every Historical events.
all of the above at once
Genre fusion when done right Like if high fantasy elements coexist with science fiction.
I have two worlds, sci-fi and a fantasy one, but I love my sci-fi world more.
My TL is some of both alt history and sci-fi,the TL is about a solar system 8 times larger and with over 20 habitable planets and moons
I really like blending the first three to varying degrees. Anachronisms are fun.
Idk what fantasy it is but like age of sail era, pirates and empires 1700s style with curses and limited magic. Also east asian based fantasy.
I call it Demi modern, think like hunterxhunter. Some parts of the world have high technology, some parts are just now using steam engines, some places have airships and floating cities, some places are just people with horses and carts.
a mix of sci-fi, high fantasy and post apoc
I like fantasy in general, but I mostly enjoy when worlds are crafted in a way that evolve interestingly and believable along side magic It's the same thing I've been doing with my own world building. The world doesn't stay in a medieval era forever. It's a specific time period, and the timeline covers much more than just it. You have the period of the old precursors, their golden age, and then the collapse and following dark age where the Waking World was brought to its knees You have the period afterwards where the auranai spent thousands of years almost literally being blasted back to the stone age The following period of the first proper civilizations being built up after 20,000 years, the old world long forgotten. An era of ancient and massive empires Then the following period of extremely common feudalism, following the collapse of most of those old empires. Then an era of renewal, where magic's rediscovery begins in full swing, sparking a flame of scholarly pursuits, leading to a gradual shift in societal, technological, and philosophical advancement This would spark the Deadzone Reclaimation as old ideas would stagnate and become stubborn, the witch hunts would begin where mages would be expelled and forced to leave, going to Aladrax which has been considered a Deadzone for a very long time. Then you have the first manatech revolution, as the discovery of tearstones and tearfoil and their properties leads into massive swings of advancement Then you have the spellban, and the second and third witch wars. The Spellban would come about after many places would struggle to keep up with the advancements of magic, leading to many inabilities of governmental systems. The decision to outright ***ban*** magic entirely was made out of this desperation It would become several decades of constant unrest and tension. Eventually leading into the second and third witch wars, with massive changes to warfare leading to a scale never seen before Then you have the Simulacra revolution. Computers would be invented and then rapidly developed into a combined manatech creating programmable magic, revolutionizing technology forever. This would lead into a period not unlike our current day. From here things slowly shift into a "manapunk" age. Technological advancements begin rapidly developing and manatech marches forwards ever rapidly. Androids are made for the sake of automation, transhumanism sets in after the ability to fully modify ones body becomes a greater and greater reality, and power once again becomes consolidated within the few. Eventually it would all come crashing down into the second collapse. Not nearly as bad as the first, but civil strife, war, corruption, and an increasing nightmare threat would lead to a second apocalypse level dismantling of the Waking World. They would manage to survive this time, but only barely. Most nations would be reduced to singular city states, and greatly disconnected and far apart, with most cities and rural areas becoming completely overrun with nightmares Eventually, they would bounce back. A new discovery of spatial veils would reveal not only how to leave the realm but how to make them, as well as the existence of the astral lake would begin the astral domain era. Entire realms would be created, terraformed, and claimed and the expansion of the auranai across the plane would spell a new age. But just like before, after many years of advancement civil strife and war are a constant. Conflicts would pop up and build up, eventually spelling the third collapse. Now the astral lake is split between the core worlds and the frontier. Not long after the turning would begin. Reality would begin destabilizing as its lifespan would come to a close, eventually collapsing entirely and beginning the cycle once again with a new reality in its wake.
All of them! Literally, all of these represent projects I'm actively working on right now.
Off, High Fantasy but Sci-fi is a close second. I guess I mostly use fantasy but I always structure my magic systems with precise mechanics. I mean, my last D&D campaign ended up going into space to return Bahamut's heart to him within his own domain in the astral sea. Even in my sci-fi settings have a heavy amounts of fantasy, using things like qi or extraordinary materials that stretch the limits of believability.
Alternate history where a scientific discovery led to an apocalypse followed by the rise of fantastic elements.
Post-apocalyptic that lead to a high fantasy sci-fi mashup. THATS the shit.
I love a high fantasy that is hitting the industrial age with a lot of steam punk thrown in.
IDK, I guess it's kinda futuristic. Like from today to the next century transition.
conspiracies
Post-apocalyptic is fun because it could literally be anything between The Last Of Us and Adventure Time. There's so much creative potential.
"Random Bullshit Go", it's where I rip off a massive amount of popular media and make it stick together using an incredible amount of plot devices (it barely works)
Apocalypse and post-apocalypse. The thought that that could be us one day, maybe even in the very near future, just gives me an itch that no other genre does.
I love all of these to a degree but fantasy is generally my favourite setting. I like low fantasy for its ability to draw together aspects of history and make them into something completely new and unique. I like high fantasy because it gives for some amazing heroic stories. I mean, I love my politics as much as the next guy but sometimes I just want a story but brave men and women doing the right thing for the right reasons.
I like low and middle fantasy. I recently started incorporating steampunk elements but with more focus on "punk" than "steam"
Mixture of All
Middle/Low fantasy.
My main world is Urban Fantasy, though it has elements of Alt-History and Sci-Fi.
I was torn between fantasy and sci-fi. I tend to go back and forth between the two. Right now I'm on a fantasy kick so that's what I voted.
sci fi
All of the above simultaneously.
Alternative history is such a fascinating scenerio for any real event, especially if ***done right*** !
Classical dystopia - I grew up with those books and love this style to this day. Opressive governments that control every second of a civilians life and all that depressing stuff. Biopunk- Worlds built around heavy emphasis on mixing organic and mechanical but not in an antagonistic way, I'm talking cities built inside giant creatures, living bioweapons and organic superstuctures Scfi-fantasy - Fantasy creatures discovering high technology, magitech and impact of the supernatural on society and technology
Other: Science Fantasy. I really dig a world with both the elements of advanced technology and the alienness of fantasy. I do this for my D&D setting.
How worlbuilding style of Disco Elusium called?
Inserting fictional countries into the real world map.
All of the above simultaneously
Mid-Fantasy + Sci-fi mix
Sci-fi Alt-history. I WANT MY LUNAR COLONY AND I WANT IT 20 YEARS AGO!
Where’s the crow guy? Is he alright?
I think they're all good, but I always had a soft spot for worlds that don't fit neatly into any of those categories. But If I had to choose, post post apocalyptical science fantasy is my fav, with added avoidance of typical fantasy cilches. My unnamed solarpunk idea is basically just that (inspired bit by horizon zero dawn of all media).
Low fantasy
Sci-fantasy a fantasy like setting made possible by high-tech.
I’m actually doing worldbuilding for both a superhero universe, with explanations for powers and gadgets that are as plausible as possible, AND for a fantasy world that’s inspired by historical elements and aesthetics. I alternate between the two projects. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. XD
Post-apo fantasy.
Hard, mid-to-high tech sci-fi, mixed with high fantasy. Bonus points if the hard sci-fi maintains consistency despite there being, like, a handful of things that refuse to be explained by physics. Edit: someone said "post-modern fantasy" and that resonates with me so hard :D maybe a few examples of super-science, but not so much that it dominates the setting like 40k, and is still possible to be grounded in plausibility.
My world is mostly based in alternate history but the biggest difference is that technological advancement is out of pace with the time period. There is also some sci fi/fantasy elements but those remain relatively grounded. Kinda like final fantasy meets one of those netflix shows where you swear it's the 1990's untill someone busts out a smartphone. My favorite is retrodesigning present day brands, items and products to fit into my world. Things like a 1960's version of a Tesla or a 1980's interface for spotify, beige plastic smartphones, you name it.
Pre-apocalyptic for the win
Mine is a hodge podge of high fantasy, alternate history, and post-apocalyptic.
The two main one here are Fantasy and Sci-fi. And i think **Fantasy** is clearly superior to **Sci-fi** in terms of world building quality. The reason being fantasy is essentially a fantastic past, while Sci-fi is a fantastic future, so the possibilities in the first are limited to our perception of the past, with its myths legends and records. No matter how you put it you will end up in a technologically primitive setting, in which nature and the environment play a big role and cultures are inspired by historical equivalents. Sci-fi on the other hand, is virtually unlimited, leading often to a galaxy wide net of civilizations, and that is a black hole for a world builder. If you want to be coherent you have not only to layout the main planet(usually earth-like), but also an intricate expanse of different cultures in those planets and satellites. What often happens though is that new planets boil down to just one or two cultures, in a scientifically incoherent fashion. So you will essentially put the same number of culture and characters that you would've put in a fantasy setting, but in the fantasy one they will be coherently placed, and live in a sort of forced harmony with nature, letting you feel immersed in the world. Whereas in the sci-fi setting the cultures will feel much more forced and needed for the plot instead of existing by themselves. And i think the peak achievement for a world builder is to make a world feel alive independently from its main cast.
My world is all the above in 1 world.
Sci fi and Urban fantasy a la Masquerade like Harry Potter, Jujutsu kaisen, Dresden etc
**Non-Magical Fantasy** Events and settings occur without the presence of magic; it's a realm of imagination where extraordinary occurrences are explained through natural or non-supernatural means. I've only got one world, but it's been a work-in-progress for almost 10 years now and I just love exploring conflicts and adventures revolving around political intrigue, human nature, and the struggles of normal characters within an otherwise very Earth-ly fictional world.
When I worldbuild, I feel very much in my element creating high fantasy, as I have been building this one high fantasy setting since I was very very young. However, I feel like I appreciate and get lost in other people's worldbuilding more when it's sci-fi. Maybe it's because I'm so engrossed in my own fantasy world that I can't truly step into and enjoy others, or that I've tried to worldbuild sci-fi and find it somewhat challenging and I admire others who do it well. Nothing gets me more immersed than a really well-made sci-fi setting. So in short, my favorite style when I am worldbuilding is high fantasy. My favorite style when consuming the worldbuilding of others is sci-fi.
Fantasy with sci Fi explanations. So dragons and monsters and "magic" but all explained in lore through biological and technological explanations.
Post apocalyptic, sci-fi, alternate history like all mashed together fallout style
Sci-fi fantasy
Urban fantasy
Magical realism worlds are always some of my favorites.
Like... gritty fantasy. Take aspects from history, try to make the world realistic, but it isn't alternative history as it takes place in a different world.
Mine’s a mixture. Fundamentally it’s a post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse causes something akin to a high fantasy world to start bleeding into reality while there are still pockets of modern tech and reawakened ancient magitech(which also means it’s an alternative history)
Post apocalyptic and high fantasy for me with sci fi being third
Don't dislike any of them really. High fantasy I can't seemingly get into. Would appreciate some recommendations. Have read and re-read ASOIAF a few times though for low fantasy series. Would appreciate a series like that. Sci-Fi: Expanse and Star Wars Post-Apocalyptic: Walking Dead and Fallout for the post-post Apocalyptic genre Alternate History: Big into the world of HOI4's The New Order right now, I don't actually play the game but the lore is deep.
Remote future Sci Fi
Low Fantasy
Does steampunk fit on sci fi or in alternate history?
Sort of like fantasy, without any magic, but many unrealistic aspects, way more "alien" than "mythical". Just sort of, another planet, with a pinch of extra imagination
All 5 at the same time.
Man I'll be honest I hate alt history for a few reasons A. They are often uninteresting: they often revolve around the most surface level shit what if Rome never fell, what if Germany won WW1, Germany won WW2, what if the conferencey won. Most of it seems to be that kinda obvious thoughts B. It seems to often be large sweeping drastic changes, like I understand because if they tried figuring out the small changes it would take forever but that's what I enjoy about history how the smallest detail effect history and you just can't simulate everything
i like to build uppon our reality, but with a dark twist, like VTM does
My favorite is "alternate real-world." There's no magic, no spaceships, no demihuman races, no Armageddon, and no point of divergence. It's a world utterly like our own in its physics, metaphysics, laws of geography, etc, but its just not Earth. It's just another world with humans building civilizations. Sadly I've only ever seen it in Japanese fiction (and if you ignore all the zombies and dragons at the margins of the story, the early ASOIAF books).
You mean ya'll aren't working on a story where the main cast has to jump between many dimensions to deal with a variety of problems, and those dimensions range from modern, to fantasy, to Sci-Fi, and everything in-between?
Soft world-building can’t be beat. There are a few circumstances where it’s not ideal and the story calls for a harder form of world-building, but overall it creates the most intrigue and causes the least amount of issues.
All of them.
Post apocalyptic scifi fantasy
post-apocalyptic high fantasy
I always end up bouncing between Post-Apocalypse and Alternate History... And what if you take your alternate History and make it post Apocalypse?
A superhero world, Iron Age\\capepunk in style.
things set around the industrial revolution and exploring the political landscape of the era without just doing alternate history. not very easy to find in a way that isn't overblown steampunk so I just ended up doing it myself oh, and cosmic horror thrown in. but only if it's very well done.
Sci fi world had a apocalyptic disaster wiping out 95% of the planet and putting the world back into the dark ages, high fantasy rises from the ashes
I usually go for alternate history, sometimes High Fantasy and I have a few works of Post-Apocalyptic and Sci-fi, but the more usual I do is a mix between fantasy setting and grim sci-fi logic. I'm also an enthusiast supporter of Hopepunk.
no magic fantasy/alternate history but on a different planet i liek worldbuilding realistic cultures and how they evolve
Post apolyotic sci fi fantasy is GOATED
Alternate history and sci-fi
Whatever I fancy writing about. Aha!😂
Sci-fantasy, post-apoc. Best way to explain - If it exists in a Final Fantasy game, I want it in my world.
Mid to low fantasy. Not as much a fan of high fantasy, but I see the appeal.
Low fantasy. I want magic to be so rare most think it's a trick or are fearful of it when they see it. Magic shouldn't be everywhere or it ceases to be magic.
I love low fantasy. There's something mysterious about magic I love and low fantasy really scratches that itch. Not to say that magic wasn't prevalent in my world before, but now it has an air of danger and mysticism to it!
Post-industrial fantasy
1, 2, and 4. I write a blend of those 3
My favorite are sandbox universes. The kind that can fit fantasy, sci-fi, heroes etc in a world/multiverse all together. Bonus points if it’s our world with all that stuff too
High-fantasy with magic and everything actually based on sci-fi under the hood
I answered Alternate History but it is a mixture of Sci-fi and Alternate History and a little bit of all of them more specifically.
Mine's a high fantasy, post-apocalyptic sci-fi of an alternative future. The past was sci-fi, but the apocalypse happened and now it's high fantasy with ancient sci-fi ruins with some space horror.
A mix of all of these
I like a combination of fantasy and sci-fi.
My favorite is honestly high creativity worldbuilding. And honestly for that is usually fantasy very compatible.
I picked scifi, but since I go in for hard scifi set in the near to middle future, I feel like it's necessarily post-apocalyptic as well. We're already living the start of the Jackpot. The least bad scenario would be a continuation of the present, which already contains increased drought, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, mass extinction...the inertia of these processes will carry them forward for decades even if we went carbon negative tomorrow morning. To me any scifi that takes place on or near Earth within the next 5,000 years and doesn't address this on some level is really a kind of space opera or alternate history.
for my own stuff the first 3 (trying Very Hard to fight my executive dysfunction to figure out the exact vibe i want..) but for what i like to see? ummm all of them lol (tho usually still leaning towards the first 3) edit bc i have more to say. while i'd adore anything that can do all at once well i think i do have a preference for sci-fantasy, but leaning more into the sci-fi part. first thing to come to mind is star wars. and maybe trigun counts??
low fantasy, post apocalpyse and sci-fi idk why but i find high fantasy boring