Does anyone do non-overpowered anymore?

[hrafnagud]

I mean, if you REALLY want to do a low-power campaign, why not eliminate experience entirely.....that ought to be the best campaign EVER!

I think you are on to something, despite your obvious sarcasm.

 

[A'koss]

I've run middle-of-the-road "powered" campaigns - Greyhawk, above-average powered - Planescape, very high powered - Namea (homebrew) and now a lower-magic setting - Call of the Aesir (also homebrew), but only a little-lower-than-core powered one. And I think with this campaign I've finally nailed down the right mix of power, fun and balance our group's been looking for.

That said, I've enjoyed them all immensely. Each style of play has it's place and each was... "right" for their time. And I think anyone who's played long enough has changed styles at least once.

A'koss.

 

[AshremBayle@Home]

Chack out my Midnight PbP game over at www.againsttheshadow.org

I started the PCs off as comoners.

 

[Cbas10]

Does anybody do non-overpowered gaming anymore? I'm working on a campaign where the Fighter is a Prestige class. The core classes are all comparable to the Warrior or the Noble in the DMG. There is power to be had in this world, but the PCs don't automatically get a fast-track to the biggest and baddest character classes. Is this so unusual that I might as well pack up and move to the center star of Orion's belt?

My D&D games tend to be a bit lower-powered than normal. However, I don't dumb-down classes or convert to prestige classes or anything. The easiest thing to do when a DM wants a "lower power" game is to really monitor the numbers and power levels of the magical items in the game. For example, the 5th level characters in my game have collectively found maybe a dozen magical items throughout the entire campaign (they started at 1st level), and this includes a few potions and scrolls.

Especially considering the fact that Damage Reduction can be just as easily based on a type of weapon or a material that it is made from, players have a wider variety of items that, while special and rare, do not have to be magical in nature. Along that route, there are several material types (and additions, such as Gem-tipped wands) that can make each and every magical item 100% unique - as they SHOULD be. It may take a little work on my part, but one will never simply find a "+1 longsword" in my games. Magical items are items of such great undertakings that whoever is making them will take great care to craft it for a particular purpose. Therefore, there is a bit more impact in the game and story when one finds a sword of legend once used by a great paladin to slay fiends. Sure, it may be "only" a +1 holy cold iron longsword, but its specific purpose and utility makes such a rare item all that much more important in a quest to slay a particular fiend in a later adventure.

Similarly, I tend to use "buff items" like Headbands of Intellect a lot less than normal. Instead of a relatively bland and generic Headband of Intellect +4, I might, for example, opt for an item that grants +2 Intelligence and skill bonuses to Concentration and a Knowledge specific to the creator and his purpose for creating the item.

This all allows characters to quest for and otherwise obtain a variety of wondrous and unique items without having to deal with characters that look like nothing more than efforts to have the largest modifiers and most tweaked out set of skillz & powurz in the world.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I find it more rewarding to DM and play a lower-powered campaign- too much magic is a crutch for ONLY using magical methods and brute force to solve problems. You put those same players in a modern or no-magic game, and they are clueless as to what to do- they approach everything from a medieval "hack & sack" mindset, or from the viewpoint of having tons of magic and resources. This is just bad playing IMO, and leads to much more one-dimensional characters.

I've played alot of high powered D&D campaigns, and it takes quite a bit of skill to survive. I find low-powered games easier to survive and more reliant on dice rolls than strategy. I would love for you to give me an example of something that a high powered game might take for granted compared to a low powered game?

Also, how hard is it to come up with a strategy when all the resources at your employ are weak and simple?

One could just as easily criticize a person for wanting to play low-powered games because they can't handle creating effective challenges in high-powered games. Please stop presuming that high-powered games are somehow easier and the players who enjoy them less competent. It is a wrong presumption.

I have played gritty games using GURPS as a system, and it was no more or less challenging than D&D. A good DM can create effective challenges for any power level.

 

[Numion]

Yep Dogbrain, I've been running a low-powered campaign for the last 12 years now. I find it more rewarding to DM and play a lower-powered campaign- too much magic is a crutch for ONLY using magical methods and brute force to solve problems.

IMO severely limiting magic is a crutch for an incompetent DM who can't make a normal-magic game work. It's all in the point of view.

 

[Silver Moon]

Yes. We have three campaigns running. One is with characters level 8th to 13th; another has characters who are in the 3rd to 6th range; Our third campaign is a hybrid D&D/Boot Hill, set on a 19th century world, and all of the characters are currently 2nd or 3rd level.

 

[Altalazar]

I think you are on to something, despite your obvious sarcasm.

Despite my sarcasm, I actually have played 0-level adventures, back in 1E - just for something different. It was fun, but the characters did eventually make it to first level.

IMNSHO, it is far, far, far harder to DM high magic than low magic. I think those who complain about games when they reach levels 9+ are complaining because they are starting to reach the end of their creativity - they can no longer railroad certain plots along due to the possibility of magic work-arounds that become available even without many magic items.

In all fairness, low-power, grovelling in the dirt can be fun - many of my campaigns have been much lower magic than most - but it really is much harder to make a good campaign with magic than without it. It requires much more thought and preparation and a much better understanding of all of the magical options that become available - from spells, if nothing else. To do low magic, you could just rip out 90% of the material and ignore it - which many probably do, and which is likely why they can't handle it when any such material has a chance of entering into their world.

What annoys me is the superior-than-thou attitude many "low-magic-dirt-grovellers" seem to take - as if there were something wrong with a good campaign that doesn't lobotomize the magic that has always been a part of D&D. Thus, my sarcasm.

 

[Cbas10]

IMO severely limiting magic is a crutch for an incompetent DM who can't make a normal-magic game work. It's all in the point of view.

...and IMO, players who feel that a larger amount or a "standard" amount of magic items is a necessity (read: fewer magic items given as rewards is a detraction from the game's enjoyment) are players who are turned on by the big numbers and kewl powurz of the game instead of compelling role-playing and captivating stories.

Most commonly, the "level" of magic (whether it is high or low) in a setting helps more to support the plots, themes, and mood of a setting (such as with Forgotten Realms) - instead of merely representing a DM's inability to "handle" the game.

 

[barsoomcore]

I started Barsoom with only two PC classes: Fighter and Rogue. Players could also take NPC classes if they liked. Over three years and nearly 100 game sessions, the highest level in the party is 12 -- but magic and psionics have been introduced, a few magic items have turned up and the PCs have hobnobbed with demi-gods.

I freely admit to running a low-magic game mainly because the level of magic in D&D frightens me. Not so much from a tactics and strategy side -- though I have a phenomenal ability to forget NPC's key abilities at times -- but from a world design point of view. Magic changes the rules, IMO, drastically, and to create a world with D&D-standard magic would take some serious thinking.

Which I'm not so good at.

But all games are good proportional to how much fun everybody playing them has.