why the attraction to "low magic"?

Let me preface this post by saying that I've had some bad experiences with DM's "forcing" restrictions on the group and justifying under the guise of "low magic". In attempt to curb (in his view) min/maxing and encourage role-playing, options were taken away from the players.

So right off the bat I'm a little biased when I read posts about people making correlations between min/maxing and bad role-playing or bad-mouthing "high" magic settings like Forgotten Realms. I've also seen low-magic referred to as a "better" style of play because the players aren't concerned with roll-playing or some such nonsense.

I'll also be the first to admit that I've never played in a low-magic campaign "done right" either. I'm not passing judgement on those that run low-magic campaigns, I would just like to know a little about why you decided to go that route and perhaps some details as to how you go went about doing it.

The biggest lure for low magic campaigns isn't necessarily min/maxing. It's people trying to recreate the fiction that they grew up with. Conan, Fafrd, Gray Mouser, Bran Mac Morn, and others are almost zero magic, while others like Corum, Hawkmoon, and even Elric, have magic, but not magic as its represented in the d20 system where fireballs are more common than charm person.

I think it has to do with "traditional" fantasy and with magic dominating and directing gameplay pretty much in D&D at higher levels (this includes magic items, so also fighter-types, for example, whose abilities are surpassed by the abilities of their magic items at some point).

Slightly exaggerating, in D&D your character is what he or she owns. A character without any magic is basically completely worthless at higher levels (again, this is a slight exaggeration).

Pushing the setting to a lower magic level (which means less magic items (no VoP ) and highly limited and restricted access to spellcasting classes) results in an emphasis on the character's other abilities instead of his or her spells and items. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

It's just a different style, altho it's probably better to pick a different system then, which might work better with that style. For example, another fantasy RPG I personally like a lot (Midgard, a german RPG, which also is around for a few decades already) is pretty much low level, when it comes to magic. Magic has a bit more of a "traditional" feel to it, magic items are scarce and highly valued (even a puny +1 sword, but even moreso the equivalent of wondrous items), spellcasters are much, much weaker and spells in general have less impact on the game. Stuff like flying is a high level spell there, for example.

OTOH, D&D works well as the sort of high-powered heroic fantasy game, which it usually evolves into at higher levels. Many DMs have problems to keep up with the scope of the game then, however. I've seen that happen more than once.

Bye
Thanee

GlassJaw said:

Let me preface this post by saying that I've had some bad experiences with DM's "forcing" restrictions on the group and justifying under the guise of "low magic". In attempt to curb (in his view) min/maxing and encourage role-playing, options were taken away from the players.

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does the DM in your situation also take options away from the monsters/NPCs?


you may not notice it but he may be balancing things in your favor too.

I've seen more than my fair share of "high magic versus low magic" threads, and "rollplaying versus roleplaying" has never been a major theme. (Perhaps many of the same people make that argument though.) As JoeGKushner pointed out, most traditional fantasy worlds have little magic compared to a typical D&D campaign -- it's often quite powerful when it is used, but it's rare and comes at a price.

One reason to play low magic is to avoid the mage-tech, which ruins the feel of a medieval world. It also makes real world problems such as food, traveling and the enviornment more urgent. In a very high magical setting the DM has to spend a lot of time worrying about the effects of teleport on international trade, magical defenses on all castles (which magic/monsters should have made obsolete) etc, etc, etc...

My world has lower magic than listed in the core due to several factors -
low population and few Large cities/metros reduces the number of enormously powerfull casters. Wizards are not trained in every country, or from every race. Clerics are reduced by affiliation. IE the only priest in this town is good enough to raise dead not of your religion, and will only raise worshipers of thier god/or race.

I don't limit the PC's as much. Most of it is limited by background, and if the player has a good story reason then my limitations are flexable.

My basic reasoning falls back to wanting a world that is internally consistant
and close to a medeival society.

JoeGKushner is exactly right -- most classic fantasy novels have been "low magic" in nature (and I'm surprised he didn't mention the goliath -- Tolkien -- in his list of classic fantasy authors). It is a desire to recreate the feel of those novels -- as opposed to the "common magic" worlds found in contemporary video games -- that leads many DMs to pursue this approach to campaign design.

(As an aside, the term "low magic" is IMO too vague -- there is a difference between a "low power" magic world, and "low frequency" magic world. E.g. magic is quite subtle and 'weak' in Tolkien's Middle-Earth, whereas in Vance's Lyonnesse novels it is very powerful but quite rare.)

DnD campaigns in which magic is pervasive and commonly available can feel more like science fiction worlds (where magic just plays the role of technology) than true fantasy settings. This is not meant as an insult -- such settings can be very fun to play in. But they don't resemble the fantasy worlds described in most classic fantasy novels.

GlassJaw said:

Let me preface this post by saying that I've had some bad experiences with DM's "forcing" restrictions on the group and justifying under the guise of "low magic". In attempt to curb (in his view) min/maxing and encourage role-playing, options were taken away from the players. ...

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Well, if a DM justifies his decision ahead of time, with reference to features of his/her campaign world, then I think that this is perfectly fine. There is absolutely NO reason why everything in the DnD books needs to be included in a given campaign (e.g. if I am running a campaign based on Medieval European cultures, and monks do not fit, then it should be perfectly fine for that class not to be available to players). In my campaign setting, for example, there is no Astral Plane, and hence no spells associated with it. I thankfully have never had players whine about such restrictions in my campaign -- they are more concerned with developing the unfolding plots in the world -- and would not want to play with players who did. (Creating an interesting campaign setting involves knowing what to leave OUT as much as it involves knowing what to include.)

I'm mostly going to reiterate things others have said.

A great deal of fantasy literature has fairly little overt magic, especially in the hands of the protagonists, and there's somehtignto be said for emulating that fiction.

Also, standard D&D relies pretty heavily on magical equipment. Many feel that what the PCs do is less important than what they've got on them while they do it. If having less magic makes them feel like the PCs choices are more important, then that's a good thing.

Having less magic also tends to make adventure design simpler, and leaves open certain story options that are closed by magical solutions.

For me, it's not really about "low magic" as much as it's about "low loot." I think that applies to my player and DMing mentalities. I'll give some examples.

The paladin I've been playing for the past two years has never garnered a plethora of magic items. This is due in part to the nature of the game world (the chance to "loot" comes up rarely) and the nature of the character. He's had the same +1 cold iron longsword since 5th level which recently became a +2 holy cold iron longsword. He's now 12th level, just got his mount, +2 full plate, and a masterwork steel shield. His mount is heavily barded, which probably puts him right around the average monetary value for his level. But it's been pretty slim pickings up to this point. My DM has a problem rationalizing valuabe loot in every single encounter, a problem with which I can empathize and commiserate. But I believe he's made adjustments to his game to alleviate the problems low loot can bring.

DMing a game of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, I recently gave my players a bunch of items that somehow related to their characters. Some of these were minorly magical, some were not. But due to the relationships of True Names in AU, my players will be given the chance to upgrade these items by learning its True Name. Rather than throwing in a new +2 keen rapier for our Unfettered, I'd rather give the character the opportunity to have the weapon grow as he grows. By adjusting the amount of loot I give out, I can give my players 3 or 4 items each that become part of their characters and learn as they learn, and grow as they grow. I think it adds a level of identity to each character. Everyone can be an Arthur with Excalibur, or Aragorn with Anduril, and so on.

I think these ideas are related to the "low magic" setting we often see and hear about (and in some cases, play in). DMs in low magic games want their characters to stand out, to be a cut above the rest, just like in the novels and movies. You never saw Gandalf running around with a huge backpack and a horde of scrolls, ioun stones, a headband, brooches, cloaks, gloves, belts, and so forth. He had his hat, his robes, his staff, and Glamdring. Everything he did he did with those items and his wits.

There's a packrat mentality in 3.x that makes traditional fantasy just plain strange. I think DMs try and alleviate that strangeness, focus on characters, and steer clear of "the warg cave with 2d4x100 gold pieces, 1d3 minor magical items, and 2d4 pieces of valuable artwork." Unfortunately, DnD is balanced with the idea that characters have lots of items and wealth at their disposal. Remove this and balance is gone: BAB quickly outstrips AC, characters cannot damage high-level foes, spellcasters outstrip everyone in power, skill checks become difficult to impossible, and so on.

If these factors aren't taken into consideration, low magic games can go horribly awry. Making a campaign into a low magic game isn't a minor design note; it requires a serious overhaul of the system. That's where the problems seem to come from. I wouldn't say low magic is any better or worse than standard 3.x. If anything, it's just more work that moves the game further and further from the core rules.

Read the world building articles over at Giant in the Playground. They do an excellent job of not only detailing world-building, but showing the thought process that went from a "low magic game" to a "radically different game." Also, check out Joshua Dyal's campaign setting. I've only read the website, but it seems like he put a lot of work and effort into creating a setting with very little magic but a high fantasy feel.

So, to answer your question, I'm not really a low magic player. I consider myself a DnD player, and I've done my best to understand how the core rules mesh together to create 3.x. That includes the premise "PC power comes from magic items." But I've played in low magic games and I understand the appeal. I would enjoy both running and playing one. However, I think it requires a lot of work to properly balance a low magic setting, and you may not find yourself playing DnD after you're done.

Belegbeth said:

(As an aside, the term "low magic" is IMO too vague -- there is a difference between a "low power" magic world, and "low frequency" magic world. E.g. magic is quite subtle and 'weak' in Tolkien's Middle-Earth, whereas in Vance's Lyonnesse novels it is very powerful but quite rare.)

DnD campaigns in which magic is pervasive and commonly available can feel more like science fiction worlds (where magic just plays the role of technology) than true fantasy settings. This is not meant as an insult -- such settings can be very fun to play in. But they don't resemble the fantasy worlds described in most classic fantasy novels.

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This is completely true. There is a huge difference between low-powered magic and low-frequency magic. I lean toward low-frequency, but high-powered magic in my fantasy worlds. Spellcasters are very powerful and rare, and are usually feared or revered by the populace (depending on their reputation and the populace in question).

I prefer magic items to be rare and powerful as well. I find the magic items in the standard DMG far too catalog-ish. It seems to make more sense to me to have the PCs running around with a few powerful items than a laundry list of weak items. I also like unique magic items, and especially those I can use for adventure hooks, or can play a part in a future campaign component.

Belegbeth said:

Well, if a DM justifies his decision ahead of time, with reference to features of his/her campaign world, then I think that this is perfectly fine. There is absolutely NO reason why everything in the DnD books needs to be included in a given campaign (e.g. if I am running a campaign based on Medieval European cultures, and monks do not fit, then it should be perfectly fine for that class not to be available to players). In my campaign setting, for example, there is no Astral Plane, and hence no spells associated with it. I thankfully have never had players whine about such restrictions in my campaign -- they are more concerned with developing the unfolding plots in the world -- and would not want to play with players who did. (Creating an interesting campaign setting involves knowing what to leave OUT as much as it involves knowing what to include.)

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Creating your own campaign world is a challenge, but with the right group of players, you can 'get away' with a lot more in terms of what you restrict than in a published setting. In my experience, players are far more likely to accept restrictions if they understand that these limitations are in place to enforce a certain feel to the game world, and not just something at the whim of the DM.

A flavor, something discernable to the players as something concrete and tangible, is a platform that is much easier upon which to base your campaign setting decisions. As in the example above, if you want to create a fairly representative Medieval European setting, Monks as presented in the D&D books would not fit in. Franciscan Monks were not martial artists, and almost never left their monasteries. Justifying the removal of other 'standards' is as easily done, given the right set of circumstances.