D&D is best when the magic is high, fast and furious!

[Dragonblade]

Meh. Those things do nothing for me. Mostly because I have seen those things done 1000 times before, and they don't get any more impressive in the latter attempts. If anything, it makes magic seem even MORE mundane when these things are commonly encountered. It just seems like putting a lot of extra flash in the game when that effort could be better spent on plot and interesting locales. I'm not saying that all high-magic games are extremely linear with simple plots, but almost every high magic game I have been in has been that way.

You have seen such high magic games 1000 times before? Where? Certainly not among these low-magic diehards!

Plot and interesting locales, hmm...

Low-magic plot: A plot to undermine the king results in the prince being kidnapped and his cousin who bears a strong resemblance and who works for a shadowy organization takes his place.

High-magic plot: A plot to undermine the king results in the prince being kidnapped and replaced by a doppleganger who works for a shadowy organization.

Two simple plots but immediately one is more interesting with far more ramifications both magical and mundane.

Low-magic locale: A grey stone citadel set on a windswept peak overlooking the countryside.

high-magic locale: A gleaming crystal palace floating mysteriously atop the same peak glows with a strange blue light when gazed upon at night.

Two locales but one is instantly more interesting and wondrous than the other.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

You have seen such high magic games 1000 times before? Where? Certainly not among these low-magic diehards!

Plot and interesting locales, hmm...

Low-magic plot: A plot to undermine the king results in the prince being kidnapped and his cousin who bears a strong resemblance and who works for a shadowy organization takes his place.

High-magic plot: A plot to undermine the king results in the prince being kidnapped and replaced by a doppleganger who works for a shadowy organization.

Two simple plots but immediately one is more interesting with far more ramifications both magical and mundane.

Low-magic locale: A grey stone citadel set on a windswept peak overlooking the countryside.

high-magic locale: A gleaming crystal palace floating mysteriously atop the same peak glows with a strange blue light when gazed upon at night.

Two locales but one is instantly more interesting and wondrous than the other.

Umm...actually, Dopplegangers can be just as probably in Low Magic as they are in High Magic....and the same for floating palaces...low magic doesn't mean NO magic...but when there IS magic in a "low magic" world, it is usually VERY powerful.
Methinks you have too biased a view. Low Magic and High Magic have much more in common than you seem know.

 

[Dragonblade]

Your analogy would work if Magic was real...but it isn't...and this is a game. Not every class has magic. By playing in a game that favors spellcasters, the non-spellcasting classes are hurt VERY badly. That's what I, and most of the other posters here, don't like about most high magic games.

The non-spellcasting classes can make up for the imbalance with magic items.

Which of course is what some of you don't like in the first place!

 

[Fenes 2]

This is exactly what I love! I think our approach is somewhat different. You don't want magic to be integral to the story or the game.

I do. I want magic to be integral to the game. I think you should have magic items or spellcasting ability to be able to survive. It makes the game more interesting for me, not less. More fantastic and more amazing.

I'm trying to think of a real world analogy that shows the gulf between us. How about airplanes? We are highly dependant on airplanes to travel around the globe or the country but people don't complain that they hate being dependant on airplanes. Nor are people lamenting the fact that those who want to drive are overshadowed by those who buy a plane ticket.

To me thats how silly your arguments sound. Because you are going to limit your games to cars and trucks you are in a sense limiting your game to one city, to carry the analogy. But in my game we can get to any city all over the world and can still drive cars too!

First, cars and airplanes are the wrong example. Try airplanes and ships for travelling aroud the globe. How many people do you know that travel by ship from New York to France, Mexico, South Africa, Japan, China, India? If you want to go to another country, airplanes will be the means of travel chosen, even if you could get by with ships.

Let me put it back to D&D: In your game, you have a couple problems magic and skills can solve, and then you have a couple problems only magic can solve. And your magical solution is usually safer, faster and easier to use (casting Fly vs using climb f.e.). Why would any smart person use the mundane option?

I don't want to play a game where my PC needs magic items or spellcasting ability to contribute, or even to survive. I don't want a game where my PCs skills mean nothing. I want to play a hero, not a gear user.

And as a DM I don't want to spend hours just integrating counters to magic spells and items in all my adventures. I went through that ordeal back in 2E with a high-level campaign, and it did not work out. The sheer amount of planning involved just to be able to keep the psion and wizard in check got too much for a weekly campaign.

 

[Umbran]

This came about as a recent conversation I had with my friend SHARK and some other friends of mine about the nature of high magic in games and my distate for WotC's emasculation of the Haste spell in 3.5.

Basically, I have always felt that D&D was at its most fun and its most exciting when you do have high level magic.

Ah, but you see, that "emasculation" wasn't in favor of "low" magic. It was in favor of high, but balanced magic.

The Haste spell, as written, was a spell that was so good that few would ever choose to do without it. But D&D isn't supposed to be a game of single, optimal methods. It's supposed to be a game about choices.

In addition, Haste was a spell that tended to steal thunder from non-spellcasters. High magic is fine, but the fighter who doesn't cast spells should still be able to be as impressive as the wizard. Haste, and a few other spells, tended to make fighters obsolete.

Changing the spell is the simplest solution to the issues, design-wise. It is easier to tone down a couple of spells than it is to redesign and balance whole classes.

 

[BryonD]

Dragonblade,

I actually feel a little sorry for you. Every type of high magic game you describe is something I enjoy. But I, and many others, also enjoy a very wide variety of other styles that you are missing out on because you, for some reason, erroneously force non-high magic games into tiny stereo-types.

Oh well.

Happy Gaming

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

The non-spellcasting classes can make up for the imbalance with magic items.

Which of course is what some of you don't like in the first place!

Hmmm...I LIKE magic items. I think they're a very fun thing to have in the game, just like spellcasters. The problem is, if a Fighter has a +5 Weapon of Ultimate Destruction...and he loses it...or its destroyed...what then? Reliance on items is fine to a point, but when keeping up with everyone else in your party takes into account only your magic items because you can't cast spells, something is wrong.
*shrugs* But...to each his own.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by Dragonblade:

You have seen such high magic games 1000 times before? Where? Certainly not among these low-magic diehards!

Plot and interesting locales, hmm...

Low-magic plot: A plot to undermine the king results in the prince being kidnapped and his cousin who bears a strong resemblance and who works for a shadowy organization takes his place.

High-magic plot: A plot to undermine the king results in the prince being kidnapped and replaced by a doppleganger who works for a shadowy organization.

Two simple plots but immediately one is more interesting with far more ramifications both magical and mundane.

Low-magic locale: A grey stone citadel set on a windswept peak overlooking the countryside.

high-magic locale: A gleaming crystal palace floating mysteriously atop the same peak glows with a strange blue light when gazed upon at night.

Two locales but one is instantly more interesting and wondrous than the other.

Its a matter of opinion which plot or setting is more intriguing or interesting. I'd have to go with the cousin scenario in #1- its not as likely to have the magical mix-ups of the doppleganger option, but the reasons and mechanations behind the coup are likely to be more involved, and more fun for the PCs to explore. Not to mention, the first thing most players will suspect when someone is replaced is a doppleganger, and there are methods of ferreting one out. The mundane prince replacement would be harder to uncover and a much more interesting background than the doppleganger. With the doppleganger, the solution is likely to kill the doppleganger to expose the threat. You can't simply murder royalty in this case though, leading to a more complex storyline.

I've been gaming for a little over 20 years now, and when I said I have seen and heard of the high-magic stereotypes utilized thousands of times, I literally have. To me, I know exactly what to expect from pulp high-magic fantasy, and there isn't really anything left to surprise or intrigue me. I became a low-magic convert about 8 years ago because it was so novel and different to me, and the campaign world has much more internal consistency and logic, and holds together better. High magic worlds wouldn't have anything like our medieval societies- but most settings seem to ignore this, instead using medieval technology, culture, and beliefs as a basis and slapping high magic on top of it. If you are going to have a high magic world, you have to completely rethink the effect omnipresent magic would have on a culture and modify it from there.

 

[Fenes 2]

You have seen such high magic games 1000 times before? Where? Certainly not among these low-magic diehards!

Plot and interesting locales, hmm...

Low-magic plot: A plot to undermine the king results in the prince being kidnapped and his cousin who bears a strong resemblance and who works for a shadowy organization takes his place.

High-magic plot: A plot to undermine the king results in the prince being kidnapped and replaced by a doppleganger who works for a shadowy organization.

Two simple plots but immediately one is more interesting with far more ramifications both magical and mundane.

Low-magic locale: A grey stone citadel set on a windswept peak overlooking the countryside.

high-magic locale: A gleaming crystal palace floating mysteriously atop the same peak glows with a strange blue light when gazed upon at night.

Two locales but one is instantly more interesting and wondrous than the other.

I made the opposite experience. When the PCs have less magical means at their disposal magic becomes stranger, and more impressive.

As others have said, low-magic does not mean no-magic. I have used doppelgangers a lot in some plots, and thanks to the less-than-normal-amount of magic items and spells in my campaign, detecting the doppleganger was much more fun and took longer than just using a couple spells.

That stone keep may harbor a ghost, or an old legend, and it could very well glow in the moonlight.

As far as more interesting goes, that is a matter of taste. I personally find overblown magic tiring and boring - it leads to the "every interesting NPC is a mage, lich in disguise or polymorphed dragon" syndrome: Players get used to magic, and you need more and more to awe them or the PCs. Finally, you get to the point where magic becomes mundane if it is not "epic".

 

[Dragonblade]

And as a DM I don't want to spend hours just integrating counters to magic spells and items in all my adventures. I went through that ordeal back in 2E with a high-level campaign, and it did not work out. The sheer amount of planning involved just to be able to keep the psion and wizard in check got too much for a weekly campaign.

Although, I like high magic there are some spells that do break the game and can ruin plot. I had this problem in 2nd Edition also. But after getting rid of those spells my game ran fine.

First of all I got rid of All Detect alignment and scrying magic and any divination magic that could be used to reveal plot details.

I also got rid of Wish. I kept its ability to cast any spell of a lower level but no longer allowed it to be an omnipotent do anything spell.

Also some 2nd Edition psionic powers were ridiculous. Suppress Magic and Subjective Reality just to name two. Those powers got the boot.

I have kept these modifications for 3rd edition. I also recently got rid of Raise Dead and all resurrection spells and started using a fate point system. Although I embrace high magic, Resurrection has too much of a video game feel. Dramatic character death should mean something.

In my experience it is these spells that ruin high level games for most DMs. Get rid of them and your high level games will be a lot more fun.