What an excellent thread, with excellent, thought-provoking responses.
My post will draw upon and embellish a lot of the comments made by the other posts to this thread.
If you recognize a bit as having come from one of your posts then please do not think that I am trying to steal your idea. I did not have time to quote each of your posts or to name each individual’s contributions. Please accept my thanks for helping me to form some of these thoughts.
I am one of the players in Die Kluge’s game. I am working on the “next big campaign” which, thanks to Die Kluge’s excellent efforts will hopefully not see the light of day for a very long time. But since Die Kluge encouraged me to write about it here…
Right now I am drawing on a number of resources to help set the tone for my game. The “big three” right now are Birthright, Midnight, and 7th Sea (in D20 it is called Swashbuckling Adventures). To a lesser extent I am drawing ideas from Ravenloft (Dark Lords, Gothic tone, descriptive DM style, the mist, Vistani) and Ars Magica (covenants, regio). I wish I had some Harn material because it sounds great, but I don’t. I have some Lankmar and have read some of the books, I may use some of that material, but I’m shooting for a lower cap on the character levels.
Imagine Birthright set in the year 1668 HC: In my game, both arcane and divine magic in Cerila has become more difficult and rare as the blood-power has become more diluted in the general population. The church, in its effort to reach the common man, dilutes its blood quickly and is eventually unable to cast even the simplest spells. Arcane casters hide themselves in hermetic covenants and soon become isolated relics of a past age. The population fears the power held by the covenants. With impotency and fear, the Church strikes out at the power of the covenants. The covenants defend themselves. The iron is hot. The Gorgon creates a ‘new religion’ with Azrai blood as its foundation. Offering spellcasting clerics and a message against the covenants, a jihad sweeps through Anuire with little resistance. The kingdoms and covenants are shattered. The remaining heirs of the ancient bloodlines are skillfully and efficiently hunted to near extinction, drawing their essence to feed the ever-increasing power of the Gorgon. The Iron Crown now rests on the Gorgon’s head: emperor and godhead (Midnight). The game starts in Brechtur, on the fringe of the Gorgon’s influence, but not entirely out from under the shadow.
I love the setting of 7th Sea and I plan to use a lot of that material to enrich the cultures and history of my world. In my game, Brechtur is a mix of Vestenmannavnjar (from the northern coasts), Eisen&Vendel (southern coast), Ussura (Vos), and Montaigne/Vodacce/Castille (the crushed cultures and kingdoms from the old Anuirian Empire). There seen to be many parallels and tie-ins between these three campaign worlds:
The Barrier in 7th Sea is similar to the Shadow Plane in Birthright.
Bloodpower in Birthright are similar to the Heroic Paths in Midnight.
But in a (failed) attempt to stay on thread, I will try to extend the discussion of low-magic and low-level within the context of my game.
1) The distinction between low-magic and rare magic
This is an important distinction. I think I’ll be shooting for a heaping helping of rare magic with a side-order of low-magic. I don’t mind characters flying, but they should be prepared to accept the consequences of such an outward display. Magical items and artifacts of old still exist, but they are hunted and hoarded. Spellcasters able to cast 5th level spells are very rare – perhaps only a handful, most of whom have Azrai blood.
Hand-in-hand with rare magic is the understanding that rare-magic makes each encounter with magic more impressionable. To assist with this I will prepare history and background for each magic item. Many will have unusual characteristics, powers, and disadvantages.
Being a spellcaster in a magic-rare world will carry a new set of advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, magic will be more effective because there will be fewer defenses against it. Also, magic will have a more significant effect on the moral of the target: cast a chill touch on the bandit leader and he will probably be more easily intimidated for fear of powerful retaliation. I will also give zero-level creatures a blanket -5 on all saving throws to increase the effectiveness of low-level magic against mundane targets.
Alchemy will be more prevalent than other forms of ‘magic’. Potions will exist in various forms and can be purchased, but using them in large quantity will be expensive. Firearms will exist and the powder-charge will be a form of alchemy; essentially a ‘potion’ of sorts.
Clerics will generally not be available to cast spells on behalf of the party because all of the spellcasting clerics (the Legate from Midnight) are all allied with the Gorgon. However a player may choose to play a druid if they like. I have not decided if Paladins will retain their spellcasting abilities but Rangers almost certainly will, following the druidic example. Druids and Rangers will cast spells as if they were arcane. In other words, they will have to observe arcane spell failure for wearing armor. However I will consider options to reduce the arcane spell failure for non-metalic armor and will probably also allow the concentration skill to offset the chance of failure.
2) The distinction between low-magic and low-level
Just because magic is rare (and/or low) does not necessarily mean I will play a low-level game. However I expect that a rare magic game will effectively reduce the power of the game regardless of the level. How much it reduces the power is to be determined. I understand that the characters will have wondrous abilities from spellcasting, class abilities, and perhaps even heroic paths [from Midnight]. As several people have already mentioned in their posts, the character abilities have as much (or more) effect on the power-level of the game as the magic items. But that said, I expect that limiting the availability of magic items will reduce the power-level of the game. More importantly, it will tend to maintain the feeling of character stability and the distinction between the classes even at the higher levels. Spellcasters will have access to spell-like abilities and Fighters, not so much. Someone said that magic items level the playing field. I think this is true. Without access to magic items, the high-level fighter is quickly out-paced by the high-level mage. However, I hope this will not be as much of a factor in my game for the following reasons: I intend to run a lower-level game, heroic paths (from Midnight) will give access to special abilities to fighters, and items that increase in power as the character raises levels (covenant items) can also help level the playing field. In addition, a high-level mage will tend to attract the wrong sort of attention if they begin throwing spells left and right. The tone and style of the game will help ensure that a fighter will not become obsolete at higher levels.
With heroic paths and covenant items, the party will have access to a lot of the ‘magic’ of their counter-parts in a standard-magic game. I have a strong Fantasy Hero background and I agree that from the game-balance perspective, points are points. I guess the distinction I envision for this game is more in tone and style than from the perspective of normalized power. In other words, what I have described so far is a game where the world is magic-rare, but the characters are not necessarily so. This magic-rare game will have a different tone and style, but the super-heroic powers and abilities that D&D is famous for will still be available to the party. But perhaps with a twist not normally associated with traditional D&D.
I’ll definitely have to think some more on this topic.
3) How D&D scales, through the various styles of play from ‘mundane’ at low level to ‘super-hero’ at the higher levels and comments on the D&D tendency for ‘dramatic growth’ and the desire for character stability
Historically I have tended to prefer a low-level game, but I admit that 3.0 changed things for me. I now feel that the game seems to be more balanced at the higher levels and this has encouraged my current group to try a high-level game. So far it is working out just great. I find I now have no preference for high or low-level games. But when our current game is over I agree with Die Kluge, I think we will all be looking to bring things down a notch and try something different.
That said, I expect I will slow the level-progression. In our “standard” D&D game, our characters tend to raise levels every 3-4 sessions. I will probably change the progression to be about one game session for each level you are attempting to acquire. For example, it will take approximately 2 gaming sessions to advance to 2nd level, 3 sessions to advance to 3rd level, etc. This will provide relatively quick advancements early on but result in slower advancement at the higher levels. Obviously I will make adjustments depending on the game, but I am thinking of this as target to shoot for. I expect the party will get to 10th level one day, but it will take a little longer. As you can tell, I’m slowing the progression compared to our previous games, I am not freezing everyone at a certain level indefinitely. As a player I enjoy the rewards that come with adventuring. I’m not prepared to completely eliminate level-progression as a regular reward in the game.
In this game, the captain of the guard is likely to be around 6th level. The champion of the kingdom will be 10th level. Only legendary individuals could hope to exceed 12th level.
Once again, even if this game has a low-level/low-power tone, eventually the characters will become high-level/high-power. But with a combination of rare-magic and a slower level progression, I’m hoping to present a tone and style of character stability, rather than one of dramatic growth. I don’t expect to entirely avoid the ‘super-hero’ tendencies of D&D. But perhaps I can make it so that when the players become super-heros, they will feel differently about it. I’m curious to see how it turns out.
Running a lower-level game changes some things about D&D. Prestige Classes will probably still exist, but they may not be available as written. As the DM I will need to carefully review any Prestige Class to ensure that it suits the style of this game. Also, with heroic paths, perhaps the need for the prestige classes will be reduced. A lower-level game will also help to enforce the rare-magic tone by eliminating high-level spells from general use.
I’ve seen several suggestions for increasing the reward to players in a low-level/low-magic game. I’ll be considering these very carefully.
4) ‘Average Joe’ vs ‘Heroic Destiny’
You can probably guess that if I use the Heroic Paths concept from Midnight (a.k.a. Bloodpowers from Birthright) that I’m shooting more for Heroic Destiny rather than Average Joe.
From Die Kluge’s comments I can see that he would like to play an Average Joe character. I understand the resistance to perpetuating the idea of the have’s and the have-nots. It runs counter to the need in all of us to know that we all have the potential to escape the bonds of our mediocrity.
“Hi, my name is Joe. I’m no different than you, except that through my own perseverance I’m now a hero. I’m not a hero because I was born different. I’m a hero because of the choices I made. You can be a hero too, if you want.”
I see nothing wrong with that at all. I don’t mind if the players want to be Average Joes. Maybe that’s the game they want to play. Cool. But let me make my ‘Heroic Destiny’ pitch as well and we’ll see what we end up with. Perhaps there will be a mechanism where some players can play ‘Average Joes’ and others can play ‘Heroic Destiny’. Or maybe that kills the point.
I’m thinking that this game will be about heroism. What is heroism? What if you were born to be a hero, how would it shape you? What if you grew up thinking you were a normal guy and then discovered that you were special? How would that change you? What if you grew up thinking you were destined for greatness, but it doesn’t turn out like you thought it would? What would you do? In a magical world where your ancestors determine your potential, what does it mean to be a hero? I think this theme can be explored from the perspective of the Average Joe, but it could also be explored from the perspective of one who was born with a heroic destiny.
I know this was a long post. But I’m sure there is still a lot to discuss. For example, I did not mention the economy, or gritty vs cinematic combat, or low-combat games…
This is only my second post so I hope I have not broken some rule about long submissions. My apologies if I have. If you got this far then please accept my thanks for your time.
I know it is a little late to be adding to this thread but if anyone is still reading, I look forward to reading any responses you might have.
Nah, seriously, get over it. Fixating on labels is a dead end.
