What is "grim and gritty" and "low magic" anyway?

WizarDru · Mar 15, 2004

Wulf Ratbane said:
Superhuman characters abound in mythology, but they still have a resonance (not to get to Jungian here) that you just don't get from high magic D&D.

Can't really argue with that, as I agree, for the most part. And, as you say, sometimes it's just about killing the bad guys and taking their stuff.

I'm A Banana · Mar 15, 2004

Now, be careful. It almost sounds like the DM is ready to change the rules of magic to railroad his players because he doesn't like it when they use magic to come up with creative solutions.

It does? Naaah, just that the DM is ready to be a rat bastard to actually get his plot done. You want the myth, I give you the Odyssey, By the Rules.

Why stop at 15th? You running a low magic game or something? Why aren't they 20th level? Are you afraid that 20th level heroes are capable of things that 15th level heroes are not?

Well, assuming that we're only using the core books and not going for the ELH for anything other than the occasional monster (but we could probably avoid it for that too), I tend to like to give my players opportunity to gain a few levels while adventuring. By the time these blokes make it back to Ithica, they've gone up a level or two. Otherwise, if we 'cap out' at 20th so we're only using the core, they don't have anywhere to go, and may as well retire right there on the battlefield, because a character who can't advance at all isn't any fun.

It's simply a matter of giving them room for XP. Your accusation is reaching at straws.

Besides, it's not as if they couldn't just plane shift away and back. That'll get you back within range of where you need to be.

Dude, PLANE SHIFT?! The spell is wildly inaccurate as a 'teleport substitute,' and there's no garuntee that in the bit of time you're on the planes you won't be harassed by some might outsider. In addition, it doesn't get the ship-mooks home. They try to plane shift to Olympus, then back to Ithica, they could wind up just as bad as when they started (or worse, because Posseidon could throw one of his best allies at them while they were on Olympus rather than attacking them through the sea). They have no idea where they'll end up when they shift back, they could manifest on some wacky foriegn land or such, and a portable hole doesn't contain enough air(one creature for ten minutes divided by thousands of creatures.....the math don't seem to favor that, even for 6 seconds).

So plane shift does not work. Even on the odd chance they decided to do exactly as you posit, and the DM overlooked the 'breathable air inside a portable hole' thing, they risk a TPK at TWO points in the quest, when they are in Olympus, and when they land again (Perhaps directly in the ocean, where some sea creature can swallow them up without so much as a ceremony)....so I just took it for granted that were such a thing proposed, Jozan or Mialee would've succeeded on their Intelligence check to Detect A Stupid Plan, and Regdar would've been beaten for trying to think.

If they don't have a portable hole, Mialee makes one. Or two. Only a damned fool of a wizard doesn't have Craft Wondrous Items.

Well, there's a few reasons she wouldn't or can't.

#1) they don't really have the time. They just sacked Troy, and the retainers are going to be back, and Mialee, being one of the heros, is really needed at the front lines and not locked away in a ship for months/weeks
#2) She *just* got 15th level....she can't craft anything until she's gotten slightly more XP, because she can't drop a level by spending it.
#3) Her character is playing a bit of a selfish wench, so of course she *wouldn't!* (why d'ya think Jozan had to cast all the spells before?) Aaaand Character Developing Plot +++!

Barring that, they send their crew off to enjoy a short vacation in paradise and cut off their ears, taking the ears home with them. On arriving home-- whether by teleport or wind walk, who cares?-- they cast true ressurrection on their crew members. Every crew member who prefers the real world to the afterlife comes back. (Hades starts to object, but realizes that the spell doesn't work that way and he doesn't get a say anymore.)

So now not only are you suffocating the crew in a hole, you're killing them....what kind of mook would agree to this?! It's disrespectful and decietful, and all too wicked.....NONE of the gods would be happy with it (though if we're using Deities and Demigods maybe Hades would be), and you'd get more than a storm coming down on their heads. On top of it being Evil to kill people for expedience (they still suffer the trauma of having been killed, after all). And even if they *did* try it, it would cost at the very minimum, 28,825 gold PER DEATH. At a bunch of thousand shipmen, this destroys the loot from Troy and more....what's the point in going to the Trojans and taking their stuff if you're just going to spend it on your mooks? In addition, these are HEROES! To kill staunch allies is reprehensible to them. Even if they were a party of complete evil bastards (not bloody likely, given most DM's and players, but still possible), who somehow managed to make it to troy, the other 15th+ level characters there wouldn't allow it. To kill the mooks, they'd have to fight a war against Heracles, Agamemnon, and all the other survivors, and their mooks, too. And they can *still* be killed at two points (plane shift), or blown off course (normally). And yeah, pissing of Hades is the least of their worries in that case (Zeus doesn't want to here Jozan's prayers anymore, at least, stripping him of all class abilities....and probably of the pull in the church needed to get these mooks resed for at price/cheap).

So no, Resurrection-transportation doesn't work, for moral quandries and logistical ones.

Perhaps they'd rather cast Gate. They're buddied up with Zeus (good buddy to have) so they open a Gate to Mt. Olympus, party with the nymphs for a while, then Gate home.

Can't cast Gate? Buy a couple of scrolls. Or summon something that can cast it for you.

Ooh! How about Teleportation Circle? That's a great way to move an army and its ill-gotten loot.

Gate: Possiedon (who has control in Olympus nearing Zeus's) puts the kibash on it, since opening a gate into a deity's realm can be forbidden by the deity there. Even if not, the spell is slightly more reliable than Plane Shift, but Possiedon can still axe them in Olympus, and then they'd be bringing trouble home with them (what do they fear more, killing the mooks on the ship with Pos's wrath, or killing their friends and family with it...). They still have the problem with transporting the whole army (the gate doesn't stay open forever). And, again the Int check to Detect A Stupid Plan succeeds, Regdar is beaten with sausages,a nd the peasants rejoice. This is assuming they are either higher level, or have ready access to the higher level, and want to spend the significant bling to get it done, which is no small feat in and of itself, though you seem to write it off as a given.

Teleportation Circle: It's a 5-ft radius, not a large enough area to get a ship by any means. And Greater Teleport has many of the same problems as Regular Teleport (no distance limit, but then there are problems transporting the entire army, and the bringing of the trouble of the gods home with them).

Any other ideas you want me to defeat, or will you rest with that and accept the fact that high-level, high-magic adventures can have all the elements of a classic mythical story? Heck, on the odd chance they do manage to circumvent the rules (not bloody likely), it just means that the planned adventure happens *after* their homes, friends, and children get destroyed by the earthquake Possiedon brings onto Ithica, and it happens with the entire population of the island instead of a portion of the troops from Troy, if you want to be a little less rail-roading (still preserving the same essential elements of plot, but certainly not being slavishly faithful to the myth anymore).

In Other News: I'm not sure it takes a potentially great DM to do this (though I'm flattered you think me in the realms of P-Kitty!). It just takes someone who's reading along, who knows the capabilities of the players, and who makes sure they know that no matter how powerful they are, there is *always* something more powerful out there, that can as handily whoop their butts as they can whoop the butts of goblins. To do this without railroading at all, it also takes a DM who is comfortable with allowing the players to script some of the plot, since they will be doing it, quite often. Which is why the inaccurate claim levied at some lm/gng DM's is that it means you're a control freak -- because your characters can't shape the quest as much as you can. In the higher-level games I've been a part of, I've never worried about railroading them to the adventure, I've worried about having the adventure follow them. No matter what Odysseus and his crew do, they're going to go on a long journey and meet strange people. If I have to make the traumatic event something a bit more personal than a storm at sea, I'm more than willing to do it, and if I have to adopt the map so that the lotus eaters are land-locked instead of an island, I'm willing to do it. Admittedly, not all DM's are -- they like to be able to almost 100% control the story. Which is fine, but is a different flavor from that of D&D....IMHO, it's less like playing a game, and more like writing a story, which is not something I'm interested in using D&D for at all, since I can get paid for writing a story without using my friends as the main characters.

kamosa · Mar 16, 2004

Odyssey

Sounds like that Odyssey campaign was a complete dud. Just proves a point about low magic. I mean the DM started out with a whole ship load of players. Then focused on just one character. By the end of the campaign there was no one left but Odysius. I think the players voted with their feet.

Bendris Noulg · Mar 16, 2004

kamosa said:
Sounds like that Odyssey campaign was a complete dud. Just proves a point about low magic. I mean the DM started out with a whole ship load of players. Then focused on just one character. By the end of the campaign there was no one left but Odysius. I think the players voted with their feet.

Solo game. PC has Leadership. Followers and Cohort died.

kamosa · Mar 16, 2004

Bendris Noulg said:
Solo game. PC has Leadership. Followers and Cohort died.

And I was hoping I was on your ignore list. Oh well.

Bendris Noulg · Mar 16, 2004

kamosa said:
And I was hoping I was on your ignore list. Oh well.

Yeah, you were... It's my soft heart. Some folks got a half-dozen chances before becoming a permanent addition through their own efforts. I'm sure if you try really really really hard, you might make it, too.

Piratecat · Mar 16, 2004

Wulf Ratbane said:
Well, again, I haven't said that high magic isn't fun, nor that it can't be challenging, just that it doesn't do a very good job of modelling the kinds of challenges which typically face the heroes of myth.

Very clear, very eloquent. Nice summary.

Dragonblade · Mar 16, 2004

Wulf Ratbane said:
Well, again, I haven't said that high magic isn't fun, nor that it can't be challenging, just that it doesn't do a very good job of modelling the kinds of challenges which typically face the heroes of myth.

I agree with this completely. The thing is people want high level D&D to be mythic. High level D&D is not mythic. Its superheroic. As in X-men.

Its a subtle distinction but a fine one. Once I recognized this, everything about high level gaming, especially all the stuff you don't see in fantasy literature, made much more sense to me. For example, PCs teleporting everywhere. Wizards with the power to shape reality, or warriors that are nigh invincible on the battlefield (at least against low-level foes).

However, when high level D&D is used in a world that tries to be mythic, it doesn't feel right, like the Midnight setting. And when its used in a world where it does fit, like the Realms, its unmythicness (is that a word?) is emphasized even more and turns off those who want it to be mythic.

ManicFuel · Mar 16, 2004

Inconsequenti-AL said:
I think I can? I quite understand that the good old fashioned block of flats has tradition, familiarity and fond memories for a lot of people.

Still, I think its a shame!

There's so many good systems out there that are very different from the 'block of flats'. It makes sense to me to dust them off if you want something different.

This is all pretty valid, and in fact I came back to D&D after some years of GURPS, HERO, and some others. GURPS does a good job of respresenting low magic and grim and gritty. The two things that brought me back were the feel, flavor and history of D&D (with more sensible mechanics this time), and the fact that it is easier to find players and DMs for D&D.

1)Rules mechanics can make a game feel and play very differently.

Quite right! My point exactly, about 50 pages up...

2)Professional/published game designers tend to make better rules than I do. If not better mechanically then at least the presentation is prettier!

Couldn't agree more. If only I could get a pro to fix and publish my house rules, then I'd be going to bat for the joys of the core rules. On the other hand, all RPGs are just house rules from someone better at making them and getting them published than I am. So official rules are just those rules accidentally found most fun by those who are best qualified to get them published. By that logic, my rules aren't automatically worse than something published, just my ability to cause them to be printed.

3)I'm way too scatty and disorganised to keep track of many complicated houserules! At least to do that and run a game properly. Without going slightly mad.

It can get this way, to be sure, but this is purely subjective from DM to DM. We all have to draw the line between "fixing" a system we like and jumping to another system (which usually also has to be "fixed"), and weigh how much effort it's really worth. Oh, and how much effort it is for the players.

Felon · Mar 16, 2004

Dragonblade said:
I agree with this completely. The thing is people want high level D&D to be mythic. High level D&D is not mythic. Its superheroic. As in X-men.

It's beyond superheroic. Superheroes (and villains) do have a nasty habit of coming back from the dead, but the X-Men don't go into fight after fight knowing that 10 minutes and a bag of diamonds is all that it takes to defy death.