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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 651819" data-attributes="member: 812">Hey SHARK, as always, a lively and fascinating discussion. I love hearing about your world, even though your imaginative power makes my eyes glaze over at times! In a good way, I mean.Barsoom works on a VERY different paradigm than your campaign, even though I think we both consider high-level magic very seriously.Many people have pointed out that magic is better on offense than on defense, which I agree with, but I think there is a reason for it that hasn't been mentioned yet.Magic is resource-independent. That is, an 18th-level wizard can cast wish every day at no expense to himself or those around him. He doesn't consume any resources in doing so and so his ability to do so can never be taken away from him through any means other than direct confrontation. You can't starve him, you can't out-manuver him, you can't take away his allies. Well, you can, but none of that will effect his ability to cast those spells.There is no form of technology in our world that even approaches this idea. It's a fundamentally different kind of power, one that has no analogue in our world. Power without resources.It is nothing short of utterly terrifying.Your campaign largely posits the nobility of the human spirit. Good people rally together and fight the forces of darkness, striving mightily to hold back the waves of evil and horror that threaten to sweep over the world. Presumably they are led by inspiring examples of courage and leadership and together they hold fast against their common enemies.Which I love. But Barsoom is a much darker place. On Barsoom, the paranoids have won. Resource-independent power favours paranoia. When you don't have to rely on anyone else for your daily power, you can afford to simply eliminate all potential threats. Sure, if you go about it poorly you'll get found out and stopped. Which is why the paranoid thrive. The ones who don't get found out. The ones who succeed. And people being what they are, eventually someone will succeed. And once they have, it's game over. Barsoom's game was over long, long ago.Barsoom is usually presented as a low-magic world. There are no spellcasting classes, very few magic items, no dragons or other magical creatures running about.That's because they've been almost completely exterminated. By the real powers. Humans who have learned the secrets of magic so completely that they have for all intents and purposes become gods. Gods who in many ways are more powerful than those described in D&DG.The Demon Goddess, who with nothing more than a thought, as a partial action, can do more than 80 points of temporary Constitution damage to each living thing within a quarter-mile of her. No saving roll, no spell resistance.The Tyrant's Shade, who can command the minds of an entire race and send them frothing into battle at his slightest whim. Who can create walls of fire miles long that rush forward faster than the swiftest bird can fly.The Queen of Serpents, Ky'in, the oldest and wickedest of them all, who can enter the dreams of every living thing and slay them without thought.None of these horrible beings will tolerate the slightest hint of a threat. A rising power's only hope is to try and play one off the other. No easy feat given their Intelligence is over 40 and their abilities to discern the truth, to learn what has happened in the far corners of the world and their ruthless devotion to keeping themselves alive.Barsoom is actually a high-magic world. A very high-magic world, but one where the operating paradigm is not heroism, as in your world, but desperation and self-preservation. Where being a hero is almost impossible.Almost, but hopefully not quite.It's very interesting seeing the difference between your campaign, where heroism is a matter of course, indeed a requirement just to survive, and Barsoom, where heroism is discouraged at every turn and the rewards for it are non-existent. Both tough worlds. Both, I hope and imagine, fun to adventure in.</blockquote>

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