D&D 5E How Old-School is 5th Edition? Can it even do Old-School?

[DND_Reborn]

The default is determined by the game itself. Even a PHB-only game is already high magic. To make a D&D game less than high magic requires limiting what’s available from the books. You’d have to remove most or all casting classes to get close to a low magic setting.

The DMG even acknowledges the game can be low or high, but neither are the standard (which is in between) by the table for Starting Equipment on page 38.

So, I don't consider the default high magic as you suggest. I know the default certainly isn't low magic! It is determined by the DM/table and how the world is presented to the players.

I would add that it is also determined by the tiers IMO for most groups. Most games never make it to tier 3, let along tier 4, so casters don't really have to be limited to make your world "low magic".

5E can certainly be high magic IF you are engaged in the higher levels at some point, give out tons of magic items, narrate your world is high magic because it is super common (streets lit by continual flame spells in any significant established community), etc.

I very much consider my game low magic, mostly because magic is rare. Casters are rare, you don't have a priest in every town to raise dead (as EGG suggested at one point IIRC...), and finding magic items, especially permanent ones are a true treasure!

 

[Mannahnin]

The DMG even acknowledges the game can be low or high, but neither are the standard (which is in between) by the table for Starting Equipment on page 38.

So, I don't consider the default high magic as you suggest. I know the default certainly isn't low magic! It is determined by the DM/table and how the world is presented to the players.

I would add that it is also determined by the tiers IMO for most groups. Most games never make it to tier 3, let along tier 4, so casters don't really have to be limited to make your world "low magic".

5E can certainly be high magic IF you are engaged in the higher levels at some point, give out tons of magic items, narrate your world is high magic because it is super common (streets lit by continual flame spells in any significant established community), etc.

I very much consider my game low magic, mostly because magic is rare. Casters are rare, you don't have a priest in every town to raise dead (as EGG suggested at one point IIRC...), and finding magic items, especially permanent ones are a true treasure!

This is a case of people meaning different things by the same phrase. Overgeeked has opined, IIRC, that the PCs simply having infinite-use cantrips is indicative of the world/campaign being what he considers High Magic.

 

[DND_Reborn]

This is a case of people meaning different things by the same phrase. Overgeeked has opined, IIRC, that the PCs simply having infinite-use cantrips is indicative of the world/campaign being what he considers High Magic.

You could very well be correct. I know phrases such as "high magic" have different meanings to different people, I was just pointing out that (as far as the game is designed), it doesn't consider itself "high magic."

FWIW @overgeeked and I are pretty much in agreement as I see it.

 

[Malmuria]

I don’t disagree with Payn or Malmuria, Im Just wondering about an attitude of this much magical weird, but not that much. Why is there a line?

There isn't a line with respect to what makes a fun game, either high or low magic can work. It's more about the style of play. The idea is that fewer character abilities makes it so that the player has to, via their character and the DM's description, explore the environment to try to solve a challenge. A common example are secret doors: do you tell the GM exactly how and where you are searching for a potential secret doors ("I reach into the back of the fireplace to see if there are any levers or buttons") or can it be handled by a passive perception score? Some people want their game to include some element of the former.

 

[Charlaquin]

When talking about the height of magic, it’s necessary to ask, relative to what? I believe that the chart in the DMG is meant to be relative to the average D&D campaign, so obviously the default would be right in the middle. But if we’re rating it compared to general fantasy fiction, I think D&D would fall on the high side. Certainly you can find higher, but I think lower is more typical.

 

[DND_Reborn]

When talking about the height of magic, it’s necessary to ask, relative to what? I believe that the chart in the DMG is meant to be relative to the average D&D campaign, so obviously the default would be right in the middle. But if we’re rating it compared to general fantasy fiction, I think D&D would fall on the high side. Certainly you can find higher, but I think lower is more typical.

Which is why I also mention the idea of relative to tiers of play and the narrative of the world Either way, what is "high magic" is subjective.

As to other fantasy games, I couldn't really say, D&D is pretty much the only fantasy game I've played. For other fiction, most of the fiction I've read is D&D-based, with only a couple exceptions--some less magical, some more.

 

[Smackpixi]

There isn't a line with respect to what makes a fun game, either high or low magic can work. It's more about the style of play.

Again, don’t disagree. But I feel like it’s always a scaling situation, player abilities vs Monster and Room abilities. Scale up the player, scale up the room. I do think in sandbox style games, if you prepopulate everything it’s much harder to have a room, dungeon, area, whatever that just scares PCs off rather than kills them all on sight, but is everything prepopulated old school? I don’t that’s it’s signature. I think the signature of old school is more or less mechanics. More, PCs walk into weird room, solve it with wit rather than ability card.

So, I think 5e allows that. Does it matter if players can jump 5ft or 50ft? You just adjust the room.

Absolutly though players rapidly scale in power and that makes providing a sensible enemy that doesn’t also scale problematic. And it’s weird. Frankly, no advancement makes adventures make more sense…I kinda do this by running more episodic game.

 

[payn]

There isn't a line with respect to what makes a fun game, either high or low magic can work. It's more about the style of play. The idea is that fewer character abilities makes it so that the player has to, via their character and the DM's description, explore the environment to try to solve a challenge. A common example are secret doors: do you tell the GM exactly how and where you are searching for a potential secret doors ("I reach into the back of the fireplace to see if there are any levers or buttons") or can it be handled by a passive perception score? Some people want their game to include some element of the former.

Also, the idea that GMs that want characters to have fewer abilities are lazy can be flipped around. Maybe GMs want players to solve problems interacting with the fiction and setting, not just their character sheet.

 

[Yora]

There's also a huge difference between the setting and the PCs.
Taking a peak over at fiction, Elric and Kane are the protagonists of their stories and sorcerers in worlds where sorcerers don't seem to be a common thing. And more than that, they appear to be among the most powerful sorcerers in their world. (Kane almost certainly is the top dog.)

That can be an interesting campaign framework as well. You could have the PCs be among the Top 100 most powerful warriors and sorcerers in the entire world, members of a very exclusive group that is able to fight demons and has equally many adventures fighting with each other. And whether you have that at 10th level, 15th, or 20th, you can still have a world where there are only a few dozen spellcasters in total, which would be very low magic as the setting is concerned.
Or on the other end you can have something like Eberron where magic is most commonly 1st and 2nd level spells, but there's a lot of them around and they are just everywhere. With rather limited magic power, you still have a world that is full of it.

 

[Oofta]

There isn't a line with respect to what makes a fun game, either high or low magic can work. It's more about the style of play. The idea is that fewer character abilities makes it so that the player has to, via their character and the DM's description, explore the environment to try to solve a challenge. A common example are secret doors: do you tell the GM exactly how and where you are searching for a potential secret doors ("I reach into the back of the fireplace to see if there are any levers or buttons") or can it be handled by a passive perception score? Some people want their game to include some element of the former.

That seems to be covered in the DMG under Running the Game > The Role of the Dice. But it's pretty much always been an option that you could go one way or another for a lot of these things, it's largely group dependent in my experience. It has very little to do with the edition of the game.