Who said they weren't? Although you could argue it as rolling a D20 and subtracting, depending on edition and calculation method.
Where Has All the Magic Gone?
- Thread starter Jack7
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Who said they weren't? Although you could argue it as rolling a D20 and subtracting, depending on edition and calculation method.
Andor
First Post
To quote a recent Girl Genius "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
If there is no wonder, and no mystery it isn't magic, it's science with newts and circles instead of cogs and circuits. If I want to play with science I don't need an RPG, I have a garage and a soldering iron.
If you don't want magic in your game, you shouldn't be playing a fantasy RPG. Period. Play a SF game, play a modern day game, play a historical game, play an alternate historical game where you explore the ramifications of a chinese expedition introducing horses and gunpowder to south america before the spainiards arrive.
Do not however whine that a fantasy game has magic in it, because that is the whole freaking point!
If there is no wonder, and no mystery it isn't magic, it's science with newts and circles instead of cogs and circuits. If I want to play with science I don't need an RPG, I have a garage and a soldering iron.
If you don't want magic in your game, you shouldn't be playing a fantasy RPG. Period. Play a SF game, play a modern day game, play a historical game, play an alternate historical game where you explore the ramifications of a chinese expedition introducing horses and gunpowder to south america before the spainiards arrive.
Do not however whine that a fantasy game has magic in it, because that is the whole freaking point!
Its not neccesarily a player issue though, it can equally be a character one. If I'm playing Wacky McNutjob then I'll love to get a Rod of Wonder. If I'm playing Sgt Grimm, then I'm going to dump that unreliable junk as fast as possible and go for the +1 thats going to help me live through the next day.
The magic and wonder doesn't have to be in items - places, NPCs, plots can all provide that without needing random magic items. See how many threads there are about people playing low-magic campaigns or asking how to hack the game to make them work.
On top of that , while the random powers can be fun, they can also be very damaging to a campaign - theres plently of stories out there about how a Deck of Many Things derailed or destroyed a game.
I'm not disagreeing with any of your basic points, except the last one.
If you allow the deck, you had better be prepared for all the possible outcomes. If it derails a campaign, so be it. If things blow up too much, giving the last living character a wish with his draw that can be used to reverse the events by going back in time just a bit is a pretty easy solution if you really want to reverse it. Just let the players know they would get the exact same pulls if they tried to use it "again".
Or let him go recruit a new party of characters around him just like if the group narrowly avoided TPK.
The DM chose to leave it in/insert it and the characters chose to draw from it. You can also choose to charge that elder wyrm with your bard or play it safe. Both have their merits.
Jack7
First Post
I hope ladies (assuming there are any in this thread) and gentlemen that this won't turn into anything more than a peculiarities argument (I like this, you don't, so you're a jerk). On the other hand I don't really see how folks can argue without disagreeing about content. (I can see how you do it without being disagreeable people, but not about what you're actually arguing about.)
That said I got no way to control this, and maybe it shouldn't be controlled, but then again, c'est la vie. I think people oughtta be tough enough to take a few insults in pursuit of their cause, it's just usually that's not necessary to get your point across if all you're arguing with is words. Instead of with bullets and knives, when it's kinda hard not to take it personal. But that's just me.
It don't necessarily have to be either/or Keefe. It could be that an interesting magical item enhances rather than replaces a character's own nature. Becomes an ally, part of his nature, lore, personality. As when men think of Arthur they think of Caliburn, or when men think of Roland they think of Durandal and his Horn. That is it doesn't have to be a man overshadowing his sword, or a sword overshadowing his man. there was a time when it was common for men to consider their swords, and items such as that as part of their nature, as symbolic of their own power. The Staff of Merlin, the Rod of Aaron, the Staff of Moses. You carried such items throughout your life and career. Sometimes they were passed on and sometimes they were so unique to you they couldn't be employed by anyone else, and so they were buried with you. That's definitely something I miss. In the game.
Magic in-game is becoming modernized to the point that people lose associations with what they possess, and instead everything about them is expendable, even their swords, staves, and most important heirlooms. There was a time when magical items were heirlooms, expressive of the nature of an individual, not disposable paper napkins you used and discarded later on. They stayed with you, adventured with you, became part of you. And that was magical, and others knew those things about you. Because they could plainly see it in what you carried. It was like a marque, a signature, a signet ring saying, "This is me." And when others saw what you carried they knew it was you and it was part of your legend. Part of your fame. It was part of your name.
Compare this: "I am Arthur, King of Britain, and here be Excalibur that I won from the ancient stone with my own hand."
With this: "I am Thaddeus and here is my +3 longsword that I bought at a discount! It was an upgrade from my old +2 short sword! When I get enough experience I'll sell this sword too and buy me a +4 Bastard! Huzzah!"
Something gets lost in the translation. Something too has been lost in the game over time in the rush to trade meaning for mechanics.
Maybe not even a scroll. Maybe rituals associated with magical items in strange or unusual ways. That would potentially open up a whole new field of magic/magical item usage.
That's certainly a valid enough point Harl, though I think you made an honest enough reply the first time. The modern game theory of "balance" does lead one to imagine that it really is the duty of the DM, or the writer, to "balance things out." I suspect it is as much subconscious and reflexive an impulse, as a considered and well-reasoned idea.
If you're telling me that DMs and module writers should not place characters in absolutely impossible situations, that this is somehow unfair, then I agree with you. (Though such truly absolutely impossible situations are rather rare, even in real life.) I'm with you. The game wouldn't last long and neither would the characters if you set out to give them truly impossible fights. However I suspect that is not what is really being implied by balance. That balance really implies something insidious (in game terms), almost subconscious, about the true nature of heroism. And if that's true then this is my opinion of balance for the sake of balance - To Hell With Balance
Let me illustrate exactly what I mean by a couple of examples.
Example One: You're a US Marshal. One day you are off-duty and walking in a store parking lot and you see an agitated man taking swings at customers. You walk over and tell the man to calm himself or you'll run him in, but he's really topped-off and decides he'll take a swing at you. You go at it with him. He's about your size, your weight, your age, your strength. He ain't a great fighter, but he ain't bad either. You trade up blows for awhile, you have the advantage of experience and calmness, he has the advantage for fury and persistence. Eventually you wear each other down but you're last man standing and you take him into custody, hand him over to a beat cop, and go home to shower off and tend your bruises. The next day your buddies come up to you at the office and say, "Yeah, I hear it wasn't much but then again you're not as young as you used to be." They pick at your fat lip and the cut over your eye, you laugh, they laugh, everybody goes back to work. And you move on to the next case.
Example Two: You're a US Marshal. One day when you are off duty and walking through a parking lot you see a suspicious looking guy trying to manhandle a woman and her little girl into a car. You sprint over. When you get there you realize the suspect is a guy you know of by reputation and record. He's already been convicted for three murders, one for beating a kid to death, another for strangulation murder. He's on the loose, probably escaped. Known car-jacker. He's big, he's tough, he's a former gangmember, and even his gang was afraid of him. And they were Mexican Mafia. You know he'll kill you if he can and kidnap the woman and kid as hostages if necessary. You're not packing. He may be. You hit him hard in the mouth and tell the gals to run. They do. He jumps on top of you and starts stomping the living hell out of you. You fight back. It looks bad. He's probably cracked a rib or two of yours already. You're having trouble seeing through your own blood. You're rolling dizzy through the debris of what the lady bought in the store. He weighs a lot more than you and he's using it to advantage. He's on top punching down and his arms are like hydraulic pistons. You think any minute you'll go under and he'll finish you. You rifle through the debris with your free hand and find a screwdriver the lady just bought. You shank it through his ribs and he screams and rolls off you. While he's pulling it out (in another second and he's got the weapon) you wipe your eyes clean, find a hammer (Thank God the woman was shopping for her husband) in the bag and whack the guy hard in the head. You figure you probably split his skull but he's still moving, and yelling, and cursing. So you hit him twice more til he don't move anymore. Then you pull out your cell phone, punch in 911 and hope they get there before he wakes up and have to do it all over again.
You're hospitalized for three days, and the thug for a week. The guys from the office come to vast you in your room and although they give you hell about how stupid and lucky you are, you know what happened, and they know what happened. You lost a tooth in the parking lot too, and so they bring you a fake gold one as a joke. When you laugh or breathe it hurts, and so the guys sneak a beer into to ya.
Now, all things being equal, you could probably describe the first fight in a lot for ways. Doing your job, a moment of have to, but it was pretty Even-Steven all the way. "A Balanced Fight." But neither you, nor anyone you know would really consider it heroic. It was worth a joke or two, a slap on the back, and a nick-name like "punch-drunk."
But the second fight. The totally unbalanced, he meant to kill you with his bare hands for fun, if you hadn't of interfered he would have raped and killed those two girls, you're lucky to be alive fight. You're too modest to admit it but you know, deep down inside, what almost happened, and so do your buddies.
They wanna take you out to eat and for beers and get the whole story, what you remember of it anyways - it happened so fast and yet took so eternally long that you really aren't sure what exactly went down. But everybody knows one thing. There was no balance, it should have been a one-way fight with at least one corpse, yours. But you did it anyways. And by God you won. And people who know about it whisper about it behind your back. They give you nicknames. The Hammer, the Fool, the Toughest SOB I ever saw.
And that my friend is the difference between heroism and just doing your job. The difference between real danger and risk, and the "balanced encounter." Something you know inside yourself. That when blood hits the ground, your blood, against almost impossible odds, against guys a lot bigger and meaner and seemingly more lethal than you are, you got it where it counts. You ain't afraid of the monster, not anytime, not anywhere. Oh, you don't make a joke of it, not inside your own heart. But in the end, you just ain't afraid.
And I know it's just a game, and it's just imagination. But perhaps it's also training for certain ideals in real life. For putting inside of your own head, and your own heart, and your own soul, the difference between a fair fight, and a truly heroic one. And I have a hard time believing that you grow real heroes from "seeds of balance." Just like I have a hard time believing you grow magic from numbers and arithmetrical mechanics. So yeah, it's just a game. But then again principles are just principles. Unless they really mean something when you really have to prove it.
I guess what I'm saying is that there are few heroic magical items anymore. Few life-time or legacy magical items anymore. Few mysterious and truly magical items anymore. Just as their are few heroes. And I think it is because, as a lot of others have pointed out, the Age of the Hero and the Age of the Heroic Magical Item is over (for the moment at least) in-game. And the real reason is, I suspect and as others have also pointed out, is because we have traded up (or is it down, or is it out, or is it down-n-out) history, and meaning, and mystery, and danger and risk, and wonder, and magic, for things like mechanics (there is nothing wrong with mechanics, everything has to work some way - but in what way - that's the question), and control, and a sort of artificial semblance of power, and mathematics, and balance.
Well folks I've been out working in the cold for most of the day.
I'm kinda beat down and numb.
Carry on fellas. It's been fun reading what you guys have been selling.
Night all.
That said I got no way to control this, and maybe it shouldn't be controlled, but then again, c'est la vie. I think people oughtta be tough enough to take a few insults in pursuit of their cause, it's just usually that's not necessary to get your point across if all you're arguing with is words. Instead of with bullets and knives, when it's kinda hard not to take it personal. But that's just me.
It don't necessarily have to be either/or Keefe. It could be that an interesting magical item enhances rather than replaces a character's own nature. Becomes an ally, part of his nature, lore, personality. As when men think of Arthur they think of Caliburn, or when men think of Roland they think of Durandal and his Horn. That is it doesn't have to be a man overshadowing his sword, or a sword overshadowing his man. there was a time when it was common for men to consider their swords, and items such as that as part of their nature, as symbolic of their own power. The Staff of Merlin, the Rod of Aaron, the Staff of Moses. You carried such items throughout your life and career. Sometimes they were passed on and sometimes they were so unique to you they couldn't be employed by anyone else, and so they were buried with you. That's definitely something I miss. In the game.
Magic in-game is becoming modernized to the point that people lose associations with what they possess, and instead everything about them is expendable, even their swords, staves, and most important heirlooms. There was a time when magical items were heirlooms, expressive of the nature of an individual, not disposable paper napkins you used and discarded later on. They stayed with you, adventured with you, became part of you. And that was magical, and others knew those things about you. Because they could plainly see it in what you carried. It was like a marque, a signature, a signet ring saying, "This is me." And when others saw what you carried they knew it was you and it was part of your legend. Part of your fame. It was part of your name.
Compare this: "I am Arthur, King of Britain, and here be Excalibur that I won from the ancient stone with my own hand."
With this: "I am Thaddeus and here is my +3 longsword that I bought at a discount! It was an upgrade from my old +2 short sword! When I get enough experience I'll sell this sword too and buy me a +4 Bastard! Huzzah!"
Something gets lost in the translation. Something too has been lost in the game over time in the rush to trade meaning for mechanics.
Maybe not even a scroll. Maybe rituals associated with magical items in strange or unusual ways. That would potentially open up a whole new field of magic/magical item usage.
That's certainly a valid enough point Harl, though I think you made an honest enough reply the first time. The modern game theory of "balance" does lead one to imagine that it really is the duty of the DM, or the writer, to "balance things out." I suspect it is as much subconscious and reflexive an impulse, as a considered and well-reasoned idea.
If you're telling me that DMs and module writers should not place characters in absolutely impossible situations, that this is somehow unfair, then I agree with you. (Though such truly absolutely impossible situations are rather rare, even in real life.) I'm with you. The game wouldn't last long and neither would the characters if you set out to give them truly impossible fights. However I suspect that is not what is really being implied by balance. That balance really implies something insidious (in game terms), almost subconscious, about the true nature of heroism. And if that's true then this is my opinion of balance for the sake of balance - To Hell With Balance
Let me illustrate exactly what I mean by a couple of examples.
Example One: You're a US Marshal. One day you are off-duty and walking in a store parking lot and you see an agitated man taking swings at customers. You walk over and tell the man to calm himself or you'll run him in, but he's really topped-off and decides he'll take a swing at you. You go at it with him. He's about your size, your weight, your age, your strength. He ain't a great fighter, but he ain't bad either. You trade up blows for awhile, you have the advantage of experience and calmness, he has the advantage for fury and persistence. Eventually you wear each other down but you're last man standing and you take him into custody, hand him over to a beat cop, and go home to shower off and tend your bruises. The next day your buddies come up to you at the office and say, "Yeah, I hear it wasn't much but then again you're not as young as you used to be." They pick at your fat lip and the cut over your eye, you laugh, they laugh, everybody goes back to work. And you move on to the next case.
Example Two: You're a US Marshal. One day when you are off duty and walking through a parking lot you see a suspicious looking guy trying to manhandle a woman and her little girl into a car. You sprint over. When you get there you realize the suspect is a guy you know of by reputation and record. He's already been convicted for three murders, one for beating a kid to death, another for strangulation murder. He's on the loose, probably escaped. Known car-jacker. He's big, he's tough, he's a former gangmember, and even his gang was afraid of him. And they were Mexican Mafia. You know he'll kill you if he can and kidnap the woman and kid as hostages if necessary. You're not packing. He may be. You hit him hard in the mouth and tell the gals to run. They do. He jumps on top of you and starts stomping the living hell out of you. You fight back. It looks bad. He's probably cracked a rib or two of yours already. You're having trouble seeing through your own blood. You're rolling dizzy through the debris of what the lady bought in the store. He weighs a lot more than you and he's using it to advantage. He's on top punching down and his arms are like hydraulic pistons. You think any minute you'll go under and he'll finish you. You rifle through the debris with your free hand and find a screwdriver the lady just bought. You shank it through his ribs and he screams and rolls off you. While he's pulling it out (in another second and he's got the weapon) you wipe your eyes clean, find a hammer (Thank God the woman was shopping for her husband) in the bag and whack the guy hard in the head. You figure you probably split his skull but he's still moving, and yelling, and cursing. So you hit him twice more til he don't move anymore. Then you pull out your cell phone, punch in 911 and hope they get there before he wakes up and have to do it all over again.
You're hospitalized for three days, and the thug for a week. The guys from the office come to vast you in your room and although they give you hell about how stupid and lucky you are, you know what happened, and they know what happened. You lost a tooth in the parking lot too, and so they bring you a fake gold one as a joke. When you laugh or breathe it hurts, and so the guys sneak a beer into to ya.
Now, all things being equal, you could probably describe the first fight in a lot for ways. Doing your job, a moment of have to, but it was pretty Even-Steven all the way. "A Balanced Fight." But neither you, nor anyone you know would really consider it heroic. It was worth a joke or two, a slap on the back, and a nick-name like "punch-drunk."
But the second fight. The totally unbalanced, he meant to kill you with his bare hands for fun, if you hadn't of interfered he would have raped and killed those two girls, you're lucky to be alive fight. You're too modest to admit it but you know, deep down inside, what almost happened, and so do your buddies.
They wanna take you out to eat and for beers and get the whole story, what you remember of it anyways - it happened so fast and yet took so eternally long that you really aren't sure what exactly went down. But everybody knows one thing. There was no balance, it should have been a one-way fight with at least one corpse, yours. But you did it anyways. And by God you won. And people who know about it whisper about it behind your back. They give you nicknames. The Hammer, the Fool, the Toughest SOB I ever saw.
And that my friend is the difference between heroism and just doing your job. The difference between real danger and risk, and the "balanced encounter." Something you know inside yourself. That when blood hits the ground, your blood, against almost impossible odds, against guys a lot bigger and meaner and seemingly more lethal than you are, you got it where it counts. You ain't afraid of the monster, not anytime, not anywhere. Oh, you don't make a joke of it, not inside your own heart. But in the end, you just ain't afraid.
And I know it's just a game, and it's just imagination. But perhaps it's also training for certain ideals in real life. For putting inside of your own head, and your own heart, and your own soul, the difference between a fair fight, and a truly heroic one. And I have a hard time believing that you grow real heroes from "seeds of balance." Just like I have a hard time believing you grow magic from numbers and arithmetrical mechanics. So yeah, it's just a game. But then again principles are just principles. Unless they really mean something when you really have to prove it.
I guess what I'm saying is that there are few heroic magical items anymore. Few life-time or legacy magical items anymore. Few mysterious and truly magical items anymore. Just as their are few heroes. And I think it is because, as a lot of others have pointed out, the Age of the Hero and the Age of the Heroic Magical Item is over (for the moment at least) in-game. And the real reason is, I suspect and as others have also pointed out, is because we have traded up (or is it down, or is it out, or is it down-n-out) history, and meaning, and mystery, and danger and risk, and wonder, and magic, for things like mechanics (there is nothing wrong with mechanics, everything has to work some way - but in what way - that's the question), and control, and a sort of artificial semblance of power, and mathematics, and balance.
Well folks I've been out working in the cold for most of the day.
I'm kinda beat down and numb.
Carry on fellas. It's been fun reading what you guys have been selling.
Night all.
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Just there's anyone still lingering under a misconception, let's go straight to the horse's mouth:
Well, Andor, that's your two cents. Now remind yourself that you're just one of a legion of nonentities posting in these forums, and attaching an overinflated sense of worth to your words doesn't do much to elevate you from the pack.
Now back to Herschel:
For some, you'd be right. For others, not so much. Others may like D&D for the one thing that really makes it stand out from other tabletop RPG's: its shameless focus on loot. A lot of folks like D&D because loot emphasizes a nice clear-cut set of incentives and rewards.
And that's just one reason to prefer D&D that has zip to do with wonder. That you think it makes it sense to indict other reasons to play D&D as "inefficient" or "impractical" rings odd. You'd do better to accept that personal preferences aren't a simple exercise in logic as to what would best suit them; they like what they like.
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Fifth Element
Legend
So if you have a system/setting where wizards have developed magic into a science, then that game cannot be fantasy? Why is magic the only source of mystery?
No one is arguing they don't want magic in their game at all, that's a strawman. The discussion originated with a "sense of wonder" type of argument, nothing to do with the presence or lack of working magic.
Raven Crowking
First Post
How odd is the statement Andor made (If you don't want magic in your game, you shouldn't be playing a fantasy RPG. Period.) if you accept that the presence of magic is the defining quality that makes an RPG a "fantasy" RPG? I personally see this is no different than "If you don't want X in your game, you shouldn't be playing an X RPG. Period." IOW, it is a statement that relies on tautalogical definition, and is therefore inherently true.
RC
RC
jasin
Explorer
So in the actual game, how do you run #2?
If you use monsters that are genuinely stronger than the PCs, like the criminal in your story, how often does it end like your story, and how often does it end with the heroes making a valiant effort, but in vain?
In a story, the author chooses whatever the outcome he wants, however unlikely. In a dice-based game, the outcomes will be dictated by statistics. Heroes facing truly unlikely odds will be truly unlikely to succeed.
Andor
First Post
Sure it could, from our perspective, because their science is not our science and so seems fantastical. We have sense of wonder as we explore the unfamiliar. However a (magician, technician, scientist?) scientologist from that world would not consider an RPG set in his own world a fantasy game anymore than we would consider an RPG set up around the adventures of 19th centry botanists exploring Africa to be a fantasy game. Conversely they might consider d20 Modern a fantasy game and have long boring arguements on the ethernet about what an engineer could really do.
BTW since we seem to have entered the semantics phase here let's have a peek at the word fantasy.
dictionary.com said:
By the majority of those definitions any RPG is a fantasy. So obviously 'a flight of fancy' is too imprecise since we wish to differentiate between 3e and d20 modern as belonging to different genres.
So to pick a few more precise definitions:
Literature. an imaginative or fanciful work, esp. one dealing with supernatural or unnatural events or characters.
Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements.
So I'm going to pick out two words as being key to the definition of a fantasy RPG. Supernatural and Unnatural. If the nature of the game world includes elements nature does not allow in ours then I call those fantastic elements. If some of them comprise the focus of the game then that is a fantasy RPG. Note that this extremely broad definition includes both Call of Cuthulu and Superhero RPGs along with the more popcorn SF games.
Now the name of the game we are disussing is Dungeons and Dragons. Dragons are a fantastical element. They are right there in the bloody name of the game. D&D is a fantasy game. If you don't want fantastical elements in your game then for the love of god don't play a fantasy game! There are dozens of non-fantasy games out there and there are plenty of people here and elsewhere that can help you find the one that suits you.
Does anyone have a serious counter-argument beyond some kneejerk "Don't tell me how to play man!" blather?
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