"There's something terribly weird about the standard fantasy setting, not least of which that 'Standard Fantasy Setting' can be uttered completely without irony. Look at us; we're a civilization so steeped in escapism that we've managed to find mundanity in something that doesn't exist and never will (no matter what your Otherkin friend might say). Why is it accepted fact that Elves fire bows and arrows and commune with trees? That was Tolkien's thing; without him, elves would just about be qualified to sell Rice Krispies. And he made Dwarves wear braided beards and wield battle-axes. Real dwarves don't do that, they get hired by Lucasfilm or take corporate office jobs because they're an equal-opportunity bonanza. Are we all but children, playing eternally on the same swingset while JRR is the grumpy dad watching from the park bench and trying not to get aroused?"
The Horde (usually Undead or Orcish, and every so often, Beast Men, when the author wants a little variety or is a fur-fan. For even more variety, all three at once.)
Generally Medieval Stasis; the general dividing line is that any technology that Leonardo da Vinci wouldn't have drawn renders the setting non-compliant, unless said technology is a Relic Of The Past.
Fantasy Gun Control: You'd better learn how to use a bow, Mack, 'cause that gun's just gonna click.
Fantasy Character Classes, if the work in question is a Roleplaying Game of some kind, though this is not a necessary element. If it's not a game it may still feature some of the character archetypes that inspired the modern classes.
The following are allowed to be removed if the setting falls in certain values of Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, or due to other Implementation Details:
Always Chaotic Evil: Oddly, both extremely idealistic and extremely cynical settings tend to remove this one.
White Magic: Associated with idealistic settings; cynical series use the Light Is Not Good option in their implementation.
Every fantasy series by David and Leigh Eddings (usually lack the traditional nonhuman races, but otherwise compliant).
Discworld complies to the standard for its first few books, while parodying and deconstructing it at the same time. Over time the setting becomes increasingly distinct.
Magic: The Gathering is an interesting example. The original release of the game was an attempt to cram in as many possible familiar fantasy elements. After that, however, the game started to develop its own style, and the current creative team describes it as "Magepunk".
A few of the Magic: The Gathering settings, especially Rath, Mirrodin, and Ravnica. (Some are compliant, though.)
However, the earliest core sets had a setting best described as this. (That plane, Dominaria, gradually changed over time and is now amid an After the End phase following the conclusion of the Time Spiral block.)
Fables — The Homelands are a patchwork of technologies, cultures, and magics of all types, with literally every imaginable fantasy or mythical creature or race.
Fan Works
With Strings Attached is an almost 100% noncompliant fantasy setting, to the point where the only trope that really applies is Medieval Stasis, and that only in one of the two cultures on C'hou; the other is a thriving quasi-Victorian land with guns, factories, etc. Also, there are elves, but Word Of God says they're just a pointy-eared race of humans.
The Princess Bride, which makes no attempt to make the (fairly limited) magic "make sense".
The Journey of the Catechist by Alan Dean Foster. No elves as such (although dwarves are mentioned in passing); while there arevarious monsters, they're decidedly different. There are, however, quite a few non-standard sapient races, including talking animals. And the kingdom and empire are both morally grey.
Kingdoms of Light by Alan Dean Foster (It takes place inside a world inside a rainbow, where the main characters are all humans that were once animals.)
Gormenghast is set in a sprawling city castle complex yet the timeless, routine, indolent nature in which the castle is maintained means it could be in any time period from High Medieval to Victorian. There is no apparent magic or magical races, yet once you get beyond the Earldom of Gormenghast, the world is fairly modern (or steampunk), complete with sky scrapers.
The Empire Of The Petal Throne setting, used in both game and novels, is distinctly non-standard, with no elves, dwarves, trolls, or anything similar to European fantasy, by design.
Also Final Fantasy XIII; the setting is 100% sci-fi except for the magic using Jerkass Gods the characters are being controlled by. Their idea of "medieval times" is basically the 20th century, except everybody is some kind of Warrior Poet living in hippie communes.
Fable — The first game is largely compliant, although it lacks most of the usual Five Races; it has mundane humans and High Men, but that's it for the "civilized" types. The second and third games deviate further from the formula by progressing through a renaissance and all the way to an industrial revolution, introducing firearms, factories, etc.
Examples of settings that are almost compliant with the standard include:
The Death Gate Cycle started out as a post-apocalyptic flavor of this standard, but then the world endedagain. The current setting is in some ways very close to the standard and wildly divergent in others. See the article for details.
A Song of Ice and Fire nominally has all of the stock elements (assuming the (unseen) children of the forest and (barely seen) Others qualify as examples of the Fairy and Eldritch Five Races) except Functional Magic. But most of these elements are used only so that they can be deconstructed.
The Garrett, P.I. series goes out of its way to subvert or deconstruct elements of this trope, both by giving them a Film Noir spin and by pumping up the snark quotient.
The setting of Heralds of Valdemar began as one of these in the original Tarma and Kethry stories, but has since come to play with the tropes quite uniquely. Psychic Powers are far more common than magic in Valdemar proper, intelligent nonhumans are most often Bond Creatures, and Medieval Stasis is strongly averted, with a dawning industrial and scientific revolution in The Mage Storms.
The Sword Of Truth series shares some of the elements, but mainly uses them as a vehicle for its Author Filibuster, particularly when the latter begins to take precedence over the fantasy elements.
Eberron is similar, in that it is the logical conclusion of a High Fantasy standard: magic is an industry and the setting's atmosphere is similar to Inter-World War Europe. All races diverge, slightly to significantly from standard, and industrial magic yields a Steampunk tone without actually using any significant steam or clockwork.
Actually, that would be 'Low Fantasy' (magic is a toolkit, society changes and grows), instead of 'High Fantasy' (magic is wondrous and can't be replicated, society is stuck in stasis).
Exalted was created specifically to subvert this trope, focusing more on Bronze Age swords-and-sandals fantasy and Chinese mythology than on the Medieval European Tolkienque things. Nonetheless, some parts of it remain (partially because they're old enough or universal enough that they appear in those influences, too.)
Warhammer 40,000: Though it's diverged a lot, it's still clearly this (or Warhammer Fantasy) at the foundations, but darker, and on a galactic scaleand darker - there are the elves (Eldar), dwarves (Squats, wiped out for not fitting the tone), orcs (Orks), the Forces of Darkness (Chaos) in an interstellar Mordor (The Eye of Terror) the Kingdom of Men (The Imperium of Man) with paladin knights (the Space Marines) and the absent True King (the God Emperor of Man, confined to the life-support of the Golden Throne).
Might And Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic (old verse) take place in what at first appears to follow the standard quite closely, and will keep that appearance if you only play the Heroes games and therefore miss the extensive Science Fantasy elements in the setting.
Tales of MU is set in a formerly compliant setting, but with the Medieval Stasis removed. The current time period is sort of like the modern age, in the same way that the Standard Fantasy Setting is kind of like the middle ages.
Avatar The Last Airbender. While we've got The Empire and The Kingdom along with rebel fighters, Magic A Is Magic A and a variety of other fantasy world tropes, its subverted in several ways. Most prominently, instead of being in a European central world the Avatarverse in a fantasy counterpart to Asia (China and Japan, mostly) with Inuit culture thrown in. There are no dwarves, elves or other similar intelligent races on par with humans, and Medieval Stasis is completely subverted, with technology developing into full out Steampunk in the sequel series.
