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The Difficulties Of Running Low Magic Campaigns
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<blockquote data-quote="Vanveen" data-source="post: 7738338" data-attributes="member: 6874262"><p>Tolkien is a potentially misleading comparison, as the Silmarillion and other early works are full of magic. LOTR represents a world in which much of that magic is gone or slowly leaking out.</p><p></p><p>The real fun of a low-magic campaign has to come from Wonder/Discovery, which is the players discovering and/or being surprised by the world and its history. For most DMs, especially younger ones, this can be difficult. It takes time and practice, and honestly if your source for this sort of thing is anime or computer games, it's going to be awful. Those are not deep or thoughtful enough, and if you think they are, you need to read more. Tolkien works because Middle-Earth is so firmly based in literature: the Kalevala, the Nibelungenlied, Gawain and the Green Knight, the Lay of Maldon. Or you could go the George RR Martin route or the Robert E Howard route, relying on the interaction of colorful NPCs and political groups to provide that complexity. This is one of the reasons I prefer older editions or OSR over things like Pathfinder. In systems like Pathfinder, the foundational structure of the game is about loot, whether it's magical or the Flying Tornado of Two Swords That's Awesome And I Beat My Brother's Character With It feat.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Vanveen, post: 7738338, member: 6874262"] Tolkien is a potentially misleading comparison, as the Silmarillion and other early works are full of magic. LOTR represents a world in which much of that magic is gone or slowly leaking out. The real fun of a low-magic campaign has to come from Wonder/Discovery, which is the players discovering and/or being surprised by the world and its history. For most DMs, especially younger ones, this can be difficult. It takes time and practice, and honestly if your source for this sort of thing is anime or computer games, it's going to be awful. Those are not deep or thoughtful enough, and if you think they are, you need to read more. Tolkien works because Middle-Earth is so firmly based in literature: the Kalevala, the Nibelungenlied, Gawain and the Green Knight, the Lay of Maldon. Or you could go the George RR Martin route or the Robert E Howard route, relying on the interaction of colorful NPCs and political groups to provide that complexity. This is one of the reasons I prefer older editions or OSR over things like Pathfinder. In systems like Pathfinder, the foundational structure of the game is about loot, whether it's magical or the Flying Tornado of Two Swords That's Awesome And I Beat My Brother's Character With It feat. [/QUOTE]
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