Interesting, thanks for the links :D
And (again) thanks for the typo notations and the feedback in general, it's all very useful :)
About FW genre as compared to Romantic Fantasy...
TL:DR
- Romantic Fantasy is the bread and butter of FW, just use a more PG-13 tone and you are good to go.
- High Fantasy is... less fitting, depending on which tropes and elements you focus on. Pretty much everything is doable and fitting except for 2 things: plot-wise the focus on the lone hero, theme-wise the focus on Good-vs-Evil
...
So, Romantic Fantasy?
- strong female lead... can do
- themes of tolerance and diversity... can do
- themes of ecology and environmental care... can do
- themes of "nature vs tech" and "responsible use vs abuse"... can do
(basically Saruman's factories vs nature and natural magic) - exclusive to humans and "bright" animals... can do
- no problem on the kind of Protagonists involved, the focus on their evolving inter-relationships
- no problem on the social change they can bring
- the focus on the ties between Protagonists and the world surrounding them (socially, politically, relationally) is at the core of FW too
This far I see zero differences between Romantic Fantasy as defined by Wikipedia and the Blue Rose article, and what can be achieved with FW. It actually fits very well and is supported and encouraged but the system mechanics :)
The one big difference I can see is the whole "good vs evil" thing.
It's possible to do... but for the Protagonists (thus the Players) it doesn't come free, nor easy.
What I mean is...
In D&D a Legal-Good character is "good" by definition, no matter what they do. The game never challenges the PC's (or Player's) definition of what "good" means. It is sanctioned by design. This of course goes in pair with the idea that "good" exists in the first place, and thus that also "evil" exists in and of itself, and (usually) that these are not circumstantial elements but rather intrinsic qualities.
Players and GM have to reeeally want to question and explore different moral themes in their game, and work hard at doing so with their own out-of-game devices.
In FW it's the other way around, especially if classes such as the Priest and Knight are involved in the mix. The game mechanics never impose an "all is grey, all is relative" worldview... but... they often foster the idea that, literally, "everything is people". So while there can easily be an "evil tyrant" it also comes natural to see them as a person, with their own flaws and qualities, fears and hopes, a past, a family, things they love, etc. This doesn't excuse their "evil acts" but it puts them into a frame where you can at least understand them, see them not as "evil" but rather misguided, broken, corrupted ... all qualities that are situational and could happen to anyone.
The "monster" in the cave? It's a savage beast, sure, and dangerous, sure, and needs to be dealt with, obviously... but it's not intrinsically "evil"... it's a "person" too... it's behaviour comes from somewhere, it has its own reasons, it can be understood.
All of this is presented, through many bits of the game mechanics, as a sort of question to the Protagonists (and their Players).
You are "good"? Fine, but why? What does it mean? What if the villain does the same thing you do? Are they "good" too now? No? Ok, but why? What's the difference? Ah, this is the difference? Fine, perfect, does it still holds true under this other circumstance? And this one? And this one?
They are "evil"? Fine, but why? etc...
There is no right answer, so the game never pushes a specific view. But the questioning is "softly ingrained" within the mechanics. It can be downplayed without breaking the game. But it's there.