The lovely thing about writing fantasy is that you can make your world and your characters anything you want them to be. This is the reason I love writing it.
However, I'm acutely aware that these 'magical' worlds must have some rules for them to function. E.g. where's the 'reality' - if you will - if I made a character who could shoot lightning bolts to their heart's content and put them up against someone who could only use melee. Obviously lightning-girl/guy is going to win hands down.
My rule would be some sort of cool-down or a tiredness factor (you can tell I used to be a gamer). Something to make it seem a bit more 'real'.
I have many rules in my books. They're in place to make it harder for the characters to just kick-ass with no questions asked.
Rules can be character rules, like the one I just mentioned, or world rules like 'this power can only be used in certain places'.
I think it's important to establish the rules ASAP. There's nothing I hate more than a writer (and I see this more in TV shows than anything else) creating a really powerful bad-guy and then 2 seasons down the line, having the MC 'discover' an even more powerful widget to kill him/her.
What do you all think? Do you have rules too?
I have rules. I created a culture and belief system for the characters in my novel. My good characters are governed by the chivalric code of honour. My novel is historical but its not set in a particular place or time. This is because I wanted to alter history slightly and couldn't do what I wanted any other way. My book does have a little magic so you could say it has elements of fantasy. But I strongly believe that my novel is grounded in reality.
Fantasy is about strange lands, fauna, peoples, creatures, weapons, but the storyline and plot still has to be character-driven. It's important to ground your characters in a reality that the reader can relate to. Fantasy world settings and objects can be given credibility when they're skilfully portrayed. Besides, every time we read a novel we are asked to suspend belief.
Most fantasy novels have the protagonist on a quest for something.