Is it time for a low-magic setting?

[buzz]

What I see is that a significant percentage of D&D players are doing it low magic...

Can I see your market research data? How many D&D players have you polled (in thousands, please)?

 

[painandgreed]

I don't know if the "option" was literally there in 1e. Magic items were certainly a huge part of the game, and the 1e DMG did have it's equivalent of the 3e wealth-by-level table, iirc.

Of course it was there. In most of the long lasting campaigns I was in during 1E, we never ran through pre-fab modules, especially not as written. I remember that our party was overjoyed on one occation because we were going to go though a module as written. It was next to a Monty Haul game as the treasure was in the 1,000's of GP per monster and I don't think we'd seen a thousand GPs in nay single treasure thoughout the previous whole of the campaign. It was flat out stated by the DM that doing such was reward for a long and good campaign so far.

 

[gizmo33]

It was not a personal attack and I am not having a bad day. That you read it that way is a possible indicator that you are being as close-minded as you accuse me of being.

Not only is telling RC that you think he's on drugs a personal attack, but also seemingly contradicts, in an amusing way, the accusation that he's close-minded. How do you know he's not on drugs that expand his mind?

You've said some things that aren't personal attacks, but restating those things and claiming that it was the sum total of your posts is misleading. If it's the case that you don't know what a personal attack is, I would suggest as a guideline that any comments about RCs recreational habits or motives are probably personal attacks, in addition to being irrelevant to the thread AFAICT. Other than that, I hope the mods could help with this, unless they're on drugs.

That simple act would be 4,753,110 times more positive and productive than what you're doing here.

Buzz, while you're policing ENWorld, could you please limit people to one alignment/paladin thread per month? Those can get really tedious. Seriously though - what's causing you pain about this thread?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

My recollection of 1e was that getting magic items was the fastest way to get XP. Games that had little magic also tended to move very slowly because you got very little XP for killing an orc compared to what you got for finding a magic sword.

You could play low-magic 1e, just as you can in 3e. Based upon nothing but personal experience and faulty memory, I would say that it may have been easier to go low-magic in 1e, but it still took some work by the DM to be sure the party wasn't wiped out because of it.

 

[el-remmen]

/slips on Mod Hat

Can we all take a deep breath and stop making insulting or accusatory remarks, and refrain from ascribing motives or mental conditions to other posters for their opinions, however misguided you might think they are?

If you disagree with someone say why and move on. . .

Or if you think it will make no difference then just hold your tongue and move on. . .

Pretty simple really. . .

Consider this a warning to anyone that might have posted or might still post to this thread.

Thanks.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't know if the "option" was literally there in 1e.

<snip>

What is true is that so many people played the early editions in so many ways with so many varying levels of rules-drift, that it's hard to speak specifically about what early D&D "was" or "wasn't".

So, then, one can easily say that many people played with lower magic, and no one blinked. Indeed, it was addressed in at least one article in D&D's official magazine, Dragon (The Highs and Lows of Fantasy) well before 2nd Ed was a gleam in TSR's eye.

 

[buzz]

I said "lowER magic" all along, and I think I defined it pretty clearly.

The subject of your original post says "low-magic", as does its content. What you described there is pretty much the standard "low-magic" thing: "lower magic, perhaps even lower fantasy, more historical or more 'grown up' feeling, grimmer and grittier world." I think we're clear on that.

Again, I can't imagine any reason why it would be any more of a "massive overhaul" than D20 modern was, in fact if it requires even 25% that much of an "overhaul" I'll eat my boots.

d20M was apparently a big enough paradigm shift that it merited its own game.

I'd wager you'd be dining on shoe leather. Magic is, hands-down, the most complicated aspect of D&D, and the one that touches the most parts of the system. The entire CR/EL system would have to be overhauled, and every race, feat, class and PrC re-examined. Iron Heroes is a great example of this. It managed to fit into the CR/EL system, but still changed a LOT. So much so that simply can't drop an IH PC into a standard D&D campaign (i.e., with D&D classes and magic, esp. items) without significant issues. You essentially have to ban the IH PC from gaining any treasure or benefitting from any spells, and treat them differently when battling monsters or NPCs with certain abilities.

As for whether it's of no use to most D&D players, what about D20 modern, or D20 cthulhu, or Eberron for that matter? Are you sure a MAJORITY of D20 players are using Eberron?

I don't understand. I never said anyting aout Eberron, d20M, or CoCd20. The latter two are irrelevant, given the first sells a fraction of what D&D does, and the second hasn't been in print for, what, 3-4 years?

The point is that the kind of low-magic supplement you describe would be incompatible (or "less compaitble enough") with the rest of the product line. That's fine if you're Green Ronin, but WotC doesn't seem particularly interested. Best I can tell, sales have shown that people want books that work with D&D as-is.

Again, how do you know low magic would be incompatable?

Because the CR system is tied to the wealth-by-level table, which is tied to magic item pricing, which is tied to the spell level system that takes up almost half the PHB, which is tied to class balance, which is tied to feat prereq's, which is tied to monster advancement and abilities, which is tied to... it goes round and round.

I've played in campaigns where even just not giving out as much treasure has hosed the system six ways from Sunday. A setting with even that simple a tweak will require effort to work with existing product.

More so than D20 modern? How is Eberron compatable with FR?

I still don't understand what d20M has to do with this. d20M has totally different assumptions than D&D. Spells of 6th level or higher don't even exist in d20M. You cannot drop a d20M PC into a D&D game without some tweaking.

As for Eberron and FR, they're compatible as heck. You can draw 99% of the elements from either setting into any D&D game and they work. The differences are primarily setting color.

Hmmm... if an apparently substantial number of people "continually" feel that Wotc should do it, maybe they should?

I never said it was a substantial number of people; that's what you're claiming. But it's a simple fact that D&D does not have 100% market share, so obviously there are people who prefer alternatives. That doesn't say anything towards D&D being fundamentally changed.

Didn't 3E arise largely based on certain wishes of the player community? If it is something which keeps coming up over and over why should it be ignored or stamped out as you seem to be implying?

3e arose out of (what I assume are) both commercial concerns and design concerns. In pursuance of these concerns, WotC invoved an army of playtesters and did more market research than any other RPG publisher in the history of the hobby. Apparently, there was no ovewhelming vote for D&D to be trasnformed into HarnMaster.

And I'm not saying you should be ignored or stamped out. Please stop putting words into my mouth.

I'm saying that:

a) Your needs have already been addressed, many times over, by various publishers
b) WotC has already established the kind of D&D they want to produce, and none of their market research is apparently telling them to do any differently
c) Ranting on ENWorld isn't going to get you what you want.

Well, was D20M a failure?

Based on WotC's ever-diminishing release schedule for it, apparently, yes. :\ Granted, a "failure" for WotC is still a lot of books sold, but it's very obvious that d20M does not draw the kind of sales that D&D does.

Just look at ENworld. How many topics in the forums are D&D-related? 60-70 thousand? How about the d20/OGL forum (which isn't even d20M-only)? 5,000? And this is d20 ground-zero on the Web!

Were you against that too? Which is it?

I own almost every d20M supplemement made by WotC, every one made by TGM, and quite a few by RPGObjects. It's a great game (though I'm leaning more towards SC2.0 lately).

What's your point? "Buying an RPG that is not D&D" != "Dislike D&D and think it needs to be changed". And who says I ever use d20M for fantasy?

4) D&D is inherently a high magic game. [/b]Patently false. There are a number of ways to play D&D, and at least a significant minority of players STILL play D20 lower magic than any of the published settings, even now.

D&D is inherrently balanced for it's curent level of magic. Every WotC supplement assumes that the level set in the core books is true.

As for the significant minority, I'd again like to see your data.

5) D&D should be all things to all players.

A questionable doctrine which IMO leads to all the strife one finds in the increasingly fanatical (actively online) D&D community. Clearly people like to play the game different ways. What is wrong with the core rules encompassing more than just D20 high magic and d20 modern?

But... you're, right now, requesting that D&D be all things to all players. At least, be what YOU want it to be, supported with assertions about the market that you're pulling out of thin air.

Whats sad is the aggression and hostility (passive or otherwise) which any suggestion of any change in D&D brings up in some people.

It may be becuase this subject comes up over and over, with a lot of the same people making the same agurments, and ultimately spends a great deal of effort accomplishing nothing other than to let people state their personal preferences and ignore prefectly good products that meet their needs.

I'm not going to speculate why, though I could as you did here invent an amusing theoretical scenario. I just think it's sad.

Cute.

 

[JustaPlayer]

I put no. There are already numerous settings out there and some of them are from WotC.

Midnight (Most like standard d20)
Conan
Iron Heroes
Black Company
Thieves’ World
Wheel of Time (WotC)
Call of Cthulhu d20 (WotC)

There is no need to reinvent the wheel again. I wouldn't by another setting from WotC. They are in a mode now in which they are watering down every concept they have to the point of blandness (no-uniqueness). Just look at the Dark Sun stuff they had go to print in Dragon. Talk about ruining what makes the setting unique and thus attractive to people.

My advise, get Mignight and use what you with for a low magic setting of your choice. Most of the work has already been done for you.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The point you're continually missing is that I am not making any qualitative statements about 3e. I am simply stating that, as far as we know, no amount of ranting on ENWorld is going to affect WotC's release schedule, especially if that ranting consists of requests to make drastic changes to the fundamental nature of D&D. The whole "low-magic" argument is a taste issue. You're not even pointing out a genuine problem with the system; all you're doing is vehemtly stating, "I prefer low-magic games!"

The most logical response to this is to point you to some "low-magic" games, or else point you to resources to make your D&D game "low-magic."

Or to accept that no amount of ranting on ENWorld is going to prevent other players from wanting an official low magic game.

Ergo, you (and I mean the general "you" here) can either continue to waste effort spinning vitriol into the ether, thereby accomplishing nothing more than demonstrating that you have a lot of free time on your hands, or you can face reality and do someting productive.

 

[el-remmen]

And its closed.