Desdichado
Hero
It's more a question of style than mechanics, as many have mentioned. All the various variations on "low magik is teh suxx0rs" responses that this thread has seen are in extremely poor taste, and reveal an incredibly narrow, provincial and ignorant viewpoint. Most rpgs are low magic and grim and gritty relative to D&D, and to imply that ergo they must be really bad and only can be run by bad GMs is simply insulting.
One of my biggest beefs with D&D is that it is a genre unto itself. It doesn't resemble Tolkien-style epic fantasy, it doesn't resemble Howard or Leiber style swords & sorcery, it doesn't resemble Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith wierd tales, it doesn't resemble Mercedes Lackey romantic fantasy, it doesn't closely resemble Burroughs planetary romance; in short, it really doesn't closely resemble anything other than itself anymore in terms of the conventions, themes and "feel" of the game.
Therefore, it seems completely logical and reasonable to me that a great many players will want to explore other styles and subgenres in fantasy. Many other games do this. I personally think d20 is a perfectly fine vehicle for low magic, grim and gritty.
For instance, my newly kicked off campaign features a removal of all spellcasting classes. No wizard, sorceror, cleric, or druid. No "minor" casters like paladins, rangers or bards. I kept the barbarian, the rogue and the fighter, added the Wildlander and Defender from Midnight, the Unfettered from AU, etc. to give a good 7-8 options, but none of them can cast any spells.
For magic, I'm using the Incantations rules from Urban Arcana/Unearthed Arcana. Further house rules, mostly from Unearthed Arcana include Sanity, Damage conversion, Class/level based defense bonus, Con score as massive damage threshold (although a failed save drops you to -1, not instant death).
Some of my influences include Pirates of the Caribbean, Robert E. Howard, The X-Files, Warhammer and John Carter of Mars. I'm not quite sure that Grim and Gritty and Swashbuckling can both be used to define a setting, but I certainly include elements that derive from all three of those adjectives.
One of my biggest beefs with D&D is that it is a genre unto itself. It doesn't resemble Tolkien-style epic fantasy, it doesn't resemble Howard or Leiber style swords & sorcery, it doesn't resemble Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith wierd tales, it doesn't resemble Mercedes Lackey romantic fantasy, it doesn't closely resemble Burroughs planetary romance; in short, it really doesn't closely resemble anything other than itself anymore in terms of the conventions, themes and "feel" of the game.
Therefore, it seems completely logical and reasonable to me that a great many players will want to explore other styles and subgenres in fantasy. Many other games do this. I personally think d20 is a perfectly fine vehicle for low magic, grim and gritty.
For instance, my newly kicked off campaign features a removal of all spellcasting classes. No wizard, sorceror, cleric, or druid. No "minor" casters like paladins, rangers or bards. I kept the barbarian, the rogue and the fighter, added the Wildlander and Defender from Midnight, the Unfettered from AU, etc. to give a good 7-8 options, but none of them can cast any spells.
For magic, I'm using the Incantations rules from Urban Arcana/Unearthed Arcana. Further house rules, mostly from Unearthed Arcana include Sanity, Damage conversion, Class/level based defense bonus, Con score as massive damage threshold (although a failed save drops you to -1, not instant death).
Some of my influences include Pirates of the Caribbean, Robert E. Howard, The X-Files, Warhammer and John Carter of Mars. I'm not quite sure that Grim and Gritty and Swashbuckling can both be used to define a setting, but I certainly include elements that derive from all three of those adjectives.