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

[Henry]

Let me turn that argument around. If low-magic gaming is so much more fun than wouldn't no magic be even more fun? Why not just limit everyone to playing cavemen where sharpened sticks and rocks are the only tools available..."Down with metallurgy! Down with other races! We should all play Caves and Mastadons for the true role-playing experience where your character's skills really matter! Bah, who wants to walk into a "village" and see people wearing "clothes"!

Actually, that sounds quite like fun! I've proposed a game like this before - but we decided to start d20 Modern instead.

 

[Tsyr]

Let me turn that argument around. If low-magic gaming is so much more fun than wouldn't no magic be even more fun? Why not just limit everyone to playing cavemen where sharpened sticks and rocks are the only tools available. Surely, as many of you posit this then becomes the purest form of role-playing where you are not a slave to your gear!

No, it wouldn't. Not that no-magic games can't be fun, quite untrue actualy, but I find *some* magic is far better than *none*... *some* gives you the impression of something unknown, dangerous, and mysterious... Lots of fun.

 

[barsoomcore]

Good point, Henry. Like I said, when I started Barsoom, it was NO-magic. You should have seen my players' faces when I told them they could play Rogues or Fighters. Humans. Oh, and no heavy armour.

They were sure this was going to be a disaster. They moaned and groaned and tried to find ways to talk me into giving them a sorcerer or a dwarf or whatever. I held firm. I told them they didn't have to play if they didn't want to.

Three years later, Barsoom is easily the most exciting, satisfying and FUN campaign I've ever run. I don't think my players would trade one bit of it for a +5 Holy Vorpal Avenger.

Anything can be fun. Even a +5 Holy Vorpal Avenger. Even cavemen. I played a game where our characters didn't even have the power of speech -- we had to communicate with each in grunts and signs. It was FUN.

Fun. There's no formula for it other than the willingness to have it. And if you're willing to have fun, you will.

 

[Henry]

Well said, barsoomcore!

But the problem remains - High magic campaigns remain loads o' fun; Low-magic campaigns remain loads o' fun, no matter what a person's preference, it won't change that. The real campaign killers are boredom in magic presentation. If the players are not enthused with what they are playing, none of it matters, because the campaign does not have long to go on before dissolving. (watch someone try to argue this point. )

I have had fun with campaigns where players managed cities by recruiting marshalls with wands of Fireballs and lightning bolts, and rode to deliver messages of the beginning of war on four-seater magic carpets; I've also played games where the player was washed up on a beach, and skill with clubs (tree-branches) was a must, and spell components were treasure.

But in all cases, it was one of two things that did the campaigns in: either players moving and being unable to go on, or it was player boredom that made us want to start a new game. And it was far more often the latter than the former.

 

[Desdichado]

We've come full circle. Now we're all patting each other on the back and checking what's in each other's pants.

 

[barsoomcore]

Hey, I checked my own pants. And nobody's expressed any boredom with what's in THERE, I can tell you that!

 

[Henry]

Hey, it beats crowbars and riot shields.

 

[barsoomcore]

Hey, it beats crowbars and riot shields.

What does that have to do with my pants?

 

[Desdichado]

Hey, I checked my own pants. And nobody's expressed any boredom with what's in THERE, I can tell you that!

Yes, but is it high magic, or no magic in there?

 

[barsoomcore]

Yes, but is it high magic, or no magic in there?

Hang on, let me give you my references...