You're not paying very good attention to the thread as a whole, and that's a shame.
I regret calling out specific problem spells as you've seized on that as my only gripe. That's not the case. I'd go through the entire list of spells and magic items if I had the time or inclination to instruct you.
And I'd give you how they really are not all that abusive in the context of the game or the story. As an aside, claiming that I "haven't paid attention" or that you need to "instruct" me is pretty insulting. Just because I like more magic in my games than you does not mean I'm any 'worse' at this glorified game of make-believe than you.
I don't have a problem with high magic as a DM-- I have a problem with it as a player. It is not that I have had plots foiled, it is that I have, as a player, seen them foiled, helped to foil them, with high level magic.
Potayto, potahto, it's the same problem, just from the other side of the screen.
The longer you play in a game, the higher level you ascend, the more magic becomes a crutch and a cure-all. You can argue against that all you like, but it's a simple fact of the CORE DESIGN of D&D-- characters are expected to use magic in order to be heroic and achieve their goals.
Heroic and achieving goals != crutch and cure all. I'm aruging that magic IS NOT a crutch and a cure all, and that you calling it such is just like people calling lm/gng games bags of unfun run by power-mad DM's.
And as others have already pointed out, that is simply inconsistent with the bulk of heroic myth, that experience that we hope to capture or emulate.
#1, the above is simply not true. The level and type of magic in D&D is NOT inconsistent with the bulk of heroic myth.
#2, not everyone wants to emulate or capture that experience. Some of us want to play a game.
Those of us who enjoy playing characters of wits, skill, and resourcefulness-- the qualities ascribed to classic heroes-- are given short shrift in a game where magic is a cure-all.
But that's the mistake, right there. In the campaigns I have run or been a part of, the vast majority have been default D&D, where your perception of magic as a cure all is just blatantly misguided. Magic is a tool; it's no more a cure-all than a sword, axe, or stick of dynamite. And just like those tools, they don't replace character's capabilities, but become extensions of the character's abilities. And thus, a character of wits, skills, and resourcefulness does not get the short shrift in the slightest, because that is as useful to a guy with a nuclear weapon as it is to a guy with a pointy stick as it is to a guy who can cast
commune as it is to a guy who makes auguries with entrails as it is to someone who can
wish the most powerful entitiy in the world simply out of existence. Characters of wits, skills, and resourcefulness all have a chance to shine, no matter what a spell can do, because magic has always had significant limitations. Even if you can scry-buff-teleport, that only lets you (maybe) beat up your enemies, it does not
solve the problem any more than spying on them as a rogue and then stabbing them in their sleep does.
While King Arthur had Excalibur, and Frodo had the One Ring and Sting, these items didn't define the character or his abilities as absolutely as items and magic do in D&D. This is a notion that peculiar to D&D, and nowhere else in fantasy fiction or myth.
Why do I care about fiction or myth? Why does being present in some book suddenly make the game a deeper, better experience? Why is a literature-inspired setting better?
It's not. If you'd like to play a campaign that mirrors that, be my guest, but don't tell me that because I have a spell or three that I can't include situations of dramatic tension as found in those. I don't want to make-believe Lord of the Rings. I want to play a game. That game can have fear, the unknown, darkness, a deep history, character risk, permanent death, sacrifice, long journeys, and deep emotional investment in the characters just as well as Lord of the Rings. I can't use the specific situations, of course, but I *can* use other situations that have stirred the same emotions. So what if Arthur wasn't defined by Excalibur? I'm playing a game, not penning a national epic. And within that game, with all it's trappings on magic items, I can *still* make one sword thrown by a watery tart seem special and significant to the character. And who are you to tell me I can't?
The low magic/GnG crowd seeks to downplay the role of magic in the game so that the characters can shine.
The characters can shine even in a campaign with the role of magic UPplayed. Shining characters are not an exclusive of the lm/gng crowd.
While its possible to have wit, skill, and resourcefulness be defining character traits in a standard D&D game, those qualities often take a back seat to acquiring more potent abilities and magical solutions IME. The scry/buff/teleport or greater invis/fly/fireball phenomena of dealing with high-level threats in D&D is proof of this, and is something NEVER found in fiction or legend. This isn't relying on the resourcefulness of characters, but instead it is the "optimal" way of dealing with high level threats according to the core rules.
Wouldn't a resourceful character in D&D make use of the tools available to them? Most notably things like spell combinations? Isn't the job of wit and creativity to overcome the threats such a being faces? If you have a problem with magic being the tools of that wit, that's remarkably different then there being a problem with the magic to begin with.
...if the DM wants to make sure the game focuses on the characters rather than a magical arms race.
It's also not the only way, nor even potentially the best way.
It was more in reference to a fear of dark unknown places- the kind of thing that makes you look around the dimmed gaming room wondering what might happen if you go down the dark hallway to the bathroom. I have played in three adventures that evoked this kind of dread and unease in the players, and all three were low magic games.
That doesn't mean that a normal or high magic game doesn't have this element, though. It doesn't mean that low magic games are any better at acheiving that effect than high magic.
In my experience, this kind of engrossing factor is hard to achieve in a high magic game, because the characters are more like superheroes than normal people, and its hard to evoke fear/dread in empowered people. There is a reason horror games don't have superpowered characters, and why more "mundane" games (where players play characters more like their real-life selves) typically evoke a greater emotional response or attachment in players. I'm not saying its impossible in a high magic game, just much harder (and believe me, I have tried).
I've made players *weep* with emotion, using a VERY high magic world where they were regularly using effects like
Scry to uncover the mysteries, regularly using
teleport to go across the world, and regularly using save-or-die effects to dispatch the bad guys. The magic level has ZERO effect on how dramatic or emotional the game is -- that power lays exclusively with the DM and the players. Either that, or I am unknowingly a very exceptional DM. I tend to think the former, myself.
only because you have to keep the game engaging and fun when often there are no clear resolutions to and feelings of accomplishment in morally gray and "gritty" sitautions, and much like "real life" every action has a number of bad consequences along with the intended good ones.
There's no reason high magic has to disregard the accomplishment in a morally gray or gritty situation, or has to have only good conseqeunces.
As for whether or not you can have engaging plots with high magic, what I said before was that it can't be done without DM fiat-- the DM has to "trump" the rules of high magic with "higher magic" that is outside the abilities of the PCs.
Whatever a DM does falls into the field of things that are "outside of the abilities of PC's." PC's only decide their own actions. Everything else is the DM's purview. I don't know how making sure enemies know how to use magic just as well as the PC's is any more "trumping" than making sure monsters present a reasonable challenge or the adventure caters to all the characters. The entire bloody night is entirely DM fiat....how is adversaries with spellcasting capability any different?
I have merely taken the position of defending it, because I understand it.
I'm not attacking lm/gng campaigns, so much. They're perfectly reasonable, and there is a market for them, and they have their place. I just don't think 'their place' is in telling normal DM's that their campaigns can't have grand emotional elements or the core ideas of plot and conflict simply because of a few spells. Which it really did seem like when things like
"high magic" means that players do not have to think. They will have a magic item or spell to solve every problem-- even death!-- and if they don't, they can just nip down to the corner and buy one. Skills are meaningless, as there is a spell that can do anything you can do better, easier, or quicker.
There is no fear of the unknown (divination).
There is no moral uncertainty (commune).
There are no arduous journeys (teleporation).
There is no heroic sacrifice (raise dead).
A high magic game removes obstacles from the players' path-- those very same obstacles that have traditionally defined a good story.
were typed. So really, I'm defending normal D&D, because lm/gng is different, but it's not any holistically better. It works for a different feel, but it's not a 'better' feel, and having normal magic does NOT yeild an easy solution to every problem, nor does it destroy the emotional investment in the game. It's the DM's that do that, not the level of magic. Normal or high magic doesn't have to be a simple game of killing things and taking their loot, any more than low magic has to be a game of killing all the impotent PC's.