Is Magic a Setting Element or a Plot Device

[Hussar]

I'll be honest up front. I'm not a huge fan of fantasy as a genre. I've read lots of fantasy, but, I tend to go more for SF. I was thinking the other day about why that might be. I like D&D after all, and I do like a lot of fantasy, so, why not dive right in?

And it hit me. Most of the fantasy I have read (and there are many exceptions here, I'm painting with a very broad brush) treats magic as a plot device. The hero needs to kill the dragon, so, he finds/makes/is given a dragon killing sword/spear/lumpy metal thing. Off he goes, kills the dragon and the peasant's rejoice.

In SF, OTOH, the magic (ok, it's not magic in SF, I know that, just work with me here) is part of the setting. There's no quest for the dragon killing sword. Everyone has one. That's why dragons are so bloody rare. Instead of being gifted by a cloak of invisibility to get past the bad guys, the hero's install a cloaking device on their ship that is pretty much readily available at any Star Home Depot.

And, again, I know that I'm painting with a broad brush. One of the things I hated about Star Trek was the fact that they often treated tech elements as plot devices - use it in one episode then totally forget about it the next.

Now, rolling this back around to RPG's.

One of the big debates in D&D is how magic is treated in a setting. And, by magic here, I mean fantastical elements. It could actually be magic, or it could simply be stuff that can't really exist in the real world - flying horses, giant insects, etc.

Often D&D settings treat magic like a plot device. The PC's have it, but, the implications of the fantastic are largely ignored. You get world's where it's pretty much just like Earth, but with some extra bits glossed over on top. Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and others all come out like this. The fantastic is not strongly woven into the setting.

There are exceptions to this of course. Dark Sun, I'm coming to realize, really speaks to its fantastic setting (fantastic as in not real, not fantastic as in really cool). Everything about the setting seems to flow from the implications of its base conceits.

Steampunk, and I'm going to stick what I've seen so far of Zeitgeist in here, also strongly leans on this. The fantastic elements aren't plot devices. They're woven straight into basic framework of the world. In Zeitgeist, circles of gold block teleportation so walls often have gold circles built into them. That sort of thing.

It's something that's really captured my imagination.

So, how about your game worlds? Do you spend time exploring the implications of the fantastic? Or, is your game world more traditional fantasy?

 

[I'm A Banana]

There's a genre tension here, and its kind of a divide between "Mundane" and "Mythic" modes of storytelling.

A "mundane" mode of storytelling is filled with technology. That technology might be inexplicable and hyberbolically fantastic, but it fills the world, is ubiquitous, and everyone can use it, even without specialized training. This is the world we live in, with guns and computers and airplanes and medicine. We all do six inexplicable things before breakfast, as if its normal, because it is to us. Dark Sun in this respect is a "mundane" mode of storytelling -- the fantastic element of global apocalypse are hard-coded into the everyday reality of the characters. This is also the mode of the pagasi calvalry and Planescape with its teleporting doorways. The Iliad is also kind of in this vein. Gods are poppin' up all over the place.

A "mythic" mode of storytelling sprinkles the fantastic into the mundane. It is an intercession of something otherworldly from an outside source that remains secret and esoteric to anyone not well versed in it. Those with contact with this otherworldly force are changed and altered and become something different and new in the world. Or if not new, at least damned unusual. It is not about things we normally experience, it is about the ineffable experiences beyond us. LotR falls more into this camp -- as much as hobbits are inherently fantastical, the story isn't about "just any hobbit," it's a story about a great hero who confronted an unstoppable menace and survived. FR and Dragonlance hit this mode, too, since their central characters and conflicts are about larger-than-life people, heroes and villains, all engaged in world-shaping activities.

Your preferences are more in a "mundane" vein, which works. You would appreciate stories about "everyday folk in a magical world" more than you would appreciate LotR-inspired stories about unique, world-saving heroics.

My preferences embrace both, though not at the same time.

You might even make a ham-handed videogame analogy: "mundane" = MMORPG, where everyone's an adventurer, and "mythic" = JRPG, where each game is a precocious group of teenagers who save the world, but they are the only precocious group of teenagers who can save THAT world.

 

[Cor Azer]

I don't think I have a preference - I enjoy gaming with and reading of both types of magic usage/implementation.

That said, regardless of the actual plot, I'm fascinated by good "what if" explorations of magic on a setting - to me, it shows an author's/DM's investment in the setting, even if it doesn't really factor into plot.

 

[Barastrondo]

I like magic rare enough that players have some foundation of familiarity without having to do a lot of homework to grasp the place, but common enough that I can have setting elements like "House Tyliel grew a witchwood around their manor and they keep leucrottas to ward away intruders" and these feel like something that would happen in the setting. Rare enough that characters without magic can't lean on "she doesn't have magic!" as a crutch to make them interesting; common enough that characters with magic can't lean on "he has magic!" as a crutch to make them interesting.

I like magic to reinforce the themes of whatever sort of game I'm running. If it's fantasy superheroes, I want magic to behave like comic book super-science. If it's an Arabian Nights pastiche, I want it to feel wondrous and colorful instead of being an alternate technology. If the speculative fiction approach undercuts and deconstructs a theme I want to celebrate, I'm not sufficiently interested in that approach to nurture it.

 

[Jacob Marley]

My preference is toward the historical, with elements of myth and legend added. Middle-Earth, Westeros, and Camelot are good examples of my ideal fantasy settings. If this constitutes a more traditional fantasy, then that is where I stand. However, these settings appear to me to be much more mundane than Oerth, Abeir-Toril, and Krynn are. And certainly more mundane than Eberron and Athas are.

Aside: My definitions of "mundane" and "myth" differ from those used by Kamikazi Midget.

 

[Hussar]

I think KM's version of Mundane and Mythic really do nail it better than my "traditional" line. Because, to be honest, there's all sorts of Mundane fantasy out there - Moorcock does some fantastic stuff in this vein.

Oh, and it's totally a preference thing. I'm glad nobody jumped on me for a sort of "neener neener, I think my fantasy is better than yours" thing. Totally not where I was going with this. I have a preference, but, that doesn't mean I think it's actually better.

And, Jacob Marley, I do agree that there is a spectrum here as well. Something like Mary Stewart's Merlin series is very much in the "myth" camp and it's something I really do like. If you take it that far, where there is barely any magic at all and the fantastic elements are so far behind the scenes that they might not even exist, then I have no problems.

Middle Earth, OTOH, bugs me to no end. I mean, here's Sauron. He's a big bad, nasty guy. Kicks the crap out of Middle Earth in the time of Isildur until he get's his finger chopped off. Ok fine. 2500 years later he comes back. And Middle Earth looks pretty much EXACTLY the same as it did in Isildur's (sp) time.

If I wrote LoTR, the first time the Fell Beasts flew over Gondor, they'd get studded with massive bolts from a 25 quarrel mangonel at a range of about a quarter of a mile. Those Oliphants? Yeah, the arbilesters using 1500 pound draw siege crossbows drop those bad boys at several hundred yards. Oh, and those masses of undisciplined orcs? They get munched up by Gondor's heavy infantry setting shields into phalanxes which didn't even exist the last time around. Rohan's cavalry is riding horses and using tactics that they've developed over the past couple of millenia dealing with all sorts of enemies.

In other words, Sauron's forces go down like chumps because it's really easy to be the big bad ass when you're facing guys with no armor and bronze spears. It's a bit different when you're facing the army of a nation that's existed unbroken for the past 2500 years.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

If I wrote LoTR, the first time the Fell Beasts flew over Gondor, they'd get studded with massive bolts from a 25 quarrel mangonel at a range of about a quarter of a mile. Those Oliphants? Yeah, the arbilesters using 1500 pound draw siege crossbows drop those bad boys at several hundred yards. Oh, and those masses of undisciplined orcs? They get munched up by Gondor's heavy infantry setting shields into phalanxes which didn't even exist the last time around. Rohan's cavalry is riding horses and using tactics that they've developed over the past couple of millenia dealing with all sorts of enemies.

In other words, Sauron's forces go down like chumps because it's really easy to be the big bad ass when you're facing guys with no armor and bronze spears. It's a bit different when you're facing the army of a nation that's existed unbroken for the past 2500 years.

But would the Gondoreans and Rohanites have all of those tactics trained and prepared for enemies they haven't seen in 2500 years? I have no idea if that holds water (I barely trudged my way through LotR.) but it seems reasonable to me that those great tactics would have been lost or forgotten over so many years.

"Did Aragon the First recommend using the siege crossbows or the phalanx against the oliphants?"
"Wait, oliphants aren't myths?"

 

[Gilladian]

I like a world which at first glance appears fairly medieval, but over time with exposure becomes plainly deeply affected by magic.

For example, in my world dragons are completely magical beings. They are created by the parent dragon(s) building a treasure hoard and then wanting an egg. When their focused intent is strong enough, an egg spontaneously generates, incubates, and hatches. The type of treasure near it deeply affects the nature of the baby. Drape a ruby bracelet over it? You get a red dragonet. Nestle it in a fistful of uncut diamonds? Hello white or silver dragon baby!

This means that abiogenesis is a theme in my world, and so is magical origin. Dwarves are carved from stone and breathed into life, diseases are created by miasmas and curses; elves return to the natural world when they grow old, etc...

AND the stories I tell reflect this (I hope!) in some little ways. I can't judge whether I prefer mythic or mundane - I think I prefer myth in my mundania... both are equally yummy.

 

[Umbran]

And it hit me. Most of the fantasy I have read (and there are many exceptions here, I'm painting with a very broad brush) treats magic as a plot device.

....

In SF, OTOH, the magic (ok, it's not magic in SF, I know that, just work with me here) is part of the setting. There's no quest for the dragon killing sword. Everyone has one.

That greatly depends upon what SF you're reading.

In SF that is spending its time doing "what if" with science and technology, any time part of the work is to explore the science concepts, the science is apt to be a plot device. In other forms, it is not. Asimov and Niven, for example, use a lot of tech as plot device.

As another example, one author, working both forms: Lois McMaster Bujold In her "Vorkosigan Saga" books, the science is usually mostly setting, and the plot is based in social and political issues. However, in Falling Free, in the same universe, that's turned around, and the technology is a device for the plot.

 

[Hussar]

But would the Gondoreans and Rohanites have all of those tactics trained and prepared for enemies they haven't seen in 2500 years? I have no idea if that holds water (I barely trudged my way through LotR.) but it seems reasonable to me that those great tactics would have been lost or forgotten over so many years.

"Did Aragon the First recommend using the siege crossbows or the phalanx against the oliphants?"
"Wait, oliphants aren't myths?"

You're missing the point. There weren't phalanxes 2500 years ago, nor were there siege crossbows. 2500 years ago, they probably weren't even using iron weapons, let alone something as advanced as a crossbow. The horsemen wouldn't have stirrups, so, no cavalry. And as far as siege weapons go, you might get some very rudimentary catapults, but, by the time of LOTR, you should have trebuchets.

It's not a case of forgetting anything.

Umbran - oh sure. Totally agree. I even mentioned Star Trek in the original post as a very common example of technology as plot device.

Kamikaze Midget frames it much better than I do. The idea that the fantastic becomes mundane in a setting where the fantastic (or scientific if you prefer) is actually part of the setting. That's not to say you can't have one off Death Star's as well. Of course you can.

But, my question was more about how different people approach this when designing a campaign world. Are your fantasy elements part of the setting or are they part of the "myth"?