Editing Standard Fantasy Setting (section)

==Medieval European Fantasy==
Distinct enough from the Standard Fantasy Setting to get its own name (and tropes page), the Medieval European Fantasy setting is, well, a setting that tries to base itself around some kind of fascimile of Medieval Europe. What distinguishes this from the Standard Fantasy Setting? Generally, that's... tricky. Expert more overt references to European culture, geography, politics, history, and so forth. This may even go so far as to bring in more elements of Arthurian legend and/or European fairytales.

There are two and a half common ways of describing the MEF to SFS relationship:

# One possible way to differentiate is to ask "is this closer to J.R.R. Tolkien or George R.R. Martin?" That is, MEF is usually more closely associated with "low powered", "more or less historically accurate", or "grimdark" fantasy, rather than Standard Fantasy Setting's "high powered", "closer to Mythology than anything realistic", or "Noblebright" fantasy.
# Another is to ask "are there cultures besides Medieval European, are they examined in any detail, and is a large amount of the story set in this non-ME culture?" If the answer to both is "Yes", you may have exited the MEF zone, and entered more of the SFS area. (Or put another way: The Daenerys parts of [[A Song of Ice and Fire]] are not MEF, if counted separately; ASoIaF as a whole counts as MEF, since that's such a small part of the story.)
# The "half" way is to just contrast MEF to the Japanese Standard Fantasy Setting.

Notable examples of this aesthetic include:
* [[Symbaroum]]
* Certain iterations of [[Bretonnia]] in [[Warhammer Fantasy]] (The rest of the world is a little too culturally advanced to fit the "Medieval" part of the name)
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire]]
* [[Dungeons and Dragons]] can be played as MEF, but it was and is more a melting pot of influences and a toolkit than anything with an actual coherent aesthetic<ref>Seriously, the 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide had rules for pistols, shotguns and lasers from [[Boot Hill]] and [[Gamma World]], and let's not get started on how Asian the [[Monk]] is.</ref>, and most generic fantasy follows in D&D's footsteps.