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

Desdichado · Mar 12, 2004

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.

buzz · Mar 12, 2004

I'm with Hong on this one.

Anyway, enough with deifnitions... What I'd really like to know is why "low magic" and "grim & gritty" seem to be such a holy grail among gamers. It may not be as common here, but over at RPG.net, these terms come up all the time--granted, embracing "low n' gritty" seems to go part-and-parcel with the general "hat of d02" over there.

Still, there seems to be this kind of mania, this covetous twinkle gamers get in their eye when it's mentioned that a game is "grim" and "low magic."

How come?

buzz · Mar 12, 2004

Joshua Dyal said:
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.

Heh.

JOHNNY TANGENT: "This whole premise reminds me of every fantasy movie I have ever seen yet it reminds me of none of them."

ME: "That's D&D for you."

Ab3, The Wrong Room In Ryleh

jrients · Mar 12, 2004

buzz said:
It may not be as common here, but over at RPG.net, these terms come up all the time--granted, embracing "low n' gritty" seems to go part-and-parcel with the general "hat of d02" over there.

Clarification: There's plenty of people who play d20 games over on RPG.net. There are people who don't like d20 as well. As a generalist rpg site I think there is room for both side, as long as you keep the most vocal partisans of either side on your ignore list.

Still, there seems to be this kind of mania, this covetous twinkle gamers get in their eye when it's mentioned that a game is "grim" and "low magic."

How come?

As a player, I prefer to survive and thrive by my wits and the luck of the roll. When I achieve success primarily via my magic stuff or when my character continues play despite dying, I start to wonder if maybe I'm cheating. Not cheating the rules, cheating myself out of some of the enjoyment of the game.

As a GM, I like to hand out treasure just as much as the next guy. I like to see people go up levels plenty fast. I like happy players and successful characters usually make happy players. However, this little itch in the back of my head sometimes tells me that my players are a bunch of wusses because they are always relying on their big toys. Is that a fair assessment? Probably not, since I gave them the stuff.

So as a player, I prefer "low magic, grim & gritty". As a DM, I run something between stock D&D and my preferences as a player.

EricNoah · Mar 12, 2004

buzz said:
Still, there seems to be this kind of mania, this covetous twinkle gamers get in their eye when it's mentioned that a game is "grim" and "low magic."

How come?

There may be a perception, possibly correct, that "any chump can run a standard D&D game, but only a master GM can run a successful grim/gritty/low magic game." So maybe it's a question of (perceived?) bragging rights.

rounser · Mar 12, 2004

So maybe it's a question of (perceived?) bragging rights.

And ironically, perhaps this "carrot" of bragging rights seems to attract just the kind of DM who'll stuff it up to a degree. Perhaps that's why the "teh suxxors" comments are coming in...and the DMs who actually run good G&G LM campaigns are protesting in turn.

Inconsequenti-AL · Mar 12, 2004

EricNoah said:
There may be a perception, possibly correct, that "any chump can run a standard D&D game, but only a master GM can run a successful grim/gritty/low magic game." So maybe it's a question of (perceived?) bragging rights.

That sounds about right!

FWIW, I'd agree that (some) low magic DnD can be difficult to run - simply because the further from the 'basic' rules a game gets, the more the GM has to keep track of, tweak on the fly and design house rules for.

Doing all that while making the game fun isn't going to be easy!

Bendris Noulg · Mar 12, 2004

Joshua Dyal said:
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.

This is especially true considering that the older editions (and the designers thereof, via Dragon magazine and other outlets) indicated that these other forms of fantasy were the influence of D&D. I mean, if you take a 1E DMG and use a magic marker to black-out everything that was ported in from a literary work, all you'd have left is a bunch of numbers with no context and EGG's thesis on social politics (both of which are rather dry).

I also consider "low magic" a total misnomer, being that 3E D&D is, itself, "high magic". I only use the term "low magic" because D&D-level magic has become the expected norm for d20 fantasy RPGs (an unfortunate occurance for the d20 system) and thus "low magic" forms a context that will be understood by most people. If I had my way, I'd use the term coined by one of my players: "sane magic".

buzz · Mar 12, 2004

jrients said:
Clarification: There's plenty of people who play d20 games over on RPG.net. There are people who don't like d20 as well.

Oh, I know. I'm one of them.

I'm just saying it's a much more common 'tude over there.

Hand of Evil · Mar 12, 2004

It is a long running dedate, fantasy vs reality. I think gamers want a level of reality in their games, they can't help but to compare what they are playing to what they view as reality. A good DM/Storyteller can run a fun entertaining game and no one will care one way or the other, they have too much fun that they don't have time to think out it.