Low Magic Campaigns?

[Desdichado]

It's always amazing to me that any discussion on low magic gaming somehow seems to turn into a fairly angry, rancorous discussion. I'm not sure why it seems to bother some people that other people may want to run a low magic game, and bother them even more that they may want to use a D&D--or at least d20--ruleset in order to do so. I mean, if you ask they say that it does't bother them, and "whatever floats your boat" but if you just start talking about low magic gaming, you invariably get all kinds of replies about how you can't do that, and it's wrong and perverse to even try, and you must be the single exception to every other D&D player who will doubtless hate what you are trying to do because D&D is about being something else entirely.

I mean, seriously--I don't get it.

 

[Celebrim]

I mean, seriously--I don't get it.

I do.

You have basically two types.

1) Players who were burned by a DM who, under the guise of running a 'low magic/grim and gritty campaign', ran a game of personal ego fulfillment in which the PC's were mere pawns in thier fantasies, the PC's where not allowed to succeed, the DM frequently tried to play the player's characters for them, and so forth.

2) Players who are themselves ego trippers, and who if they are not allowed to control the game, play the DM's NPC's for themselves, set the rules of the game, and maximize thier character to the point that virtually nothing is a challenge, will accuse the DM of being a control freak as per #1 above.

What happens in a discussion of a low magic campaign is that the players who fall into category #1, assume that all the DM's who are talking about low magic are @#$!@#! megalomaniacs and vent thier hatred at you for what some other DM did to them. And all the players of category #2, who are themselves #$$!@#$ megalomaniacs, come and vent thier hatred at anyone or anything that suggests maybe they shouldn't be allowed to have thier way on everything because to these ego addicts, the mere suggestion that low magic D&D is legitimate and fun is a threat to one of the few things in life that gives them a sense of satisfaction and that threat has to be squashed at every oppurtunity.

 

[S'mon]

Celebrim - while I agree with your (1) and (2) analysis, I disagree that all power-trippers are antisocial, unpleasant types. My friend Upper_Krust is very much into the power fantasy stuff, and he's widely acknowledged to be a nice guy.

Edit: He also has no objection to other people playing low-magic D&D even though it's diametrically opposed to his own play style.

 

[molonel]

Molonel - you can have a super-low-magic grim & gritty campaign with nearly no magic, combat is lethal etc, and the player plays Rasputin. How the hell is playing Rasputin *not* a power fantasy? You don't need to be casting fireballs at 5th level to have a power fantasy.

Since I'm running two low-magic games, right now, the odds are pretty good that I already knew that.

I don't know- I've had a couple of CoC PCs who lived to be old and sane.

And the reason you remember those characters?

They were the exception.

I try not to take the mickey out of DnD, even if ‘at it's red beating heart, D&D is a power fantasy’ (a statement with which I disagree btw). Let’s face it, I’m posting on a DnD forum and to call the game you obviously love would be both rude and foolish.

Fair enough.

However, I see no reason to use derogatory language like ‘Crawl through the Lovely Filth campaign (tm).’ The characters in my campaign aren’t afraid of dying of tetanus, nor do they spend the entire campaign in running away. I’ve never seen such a game, and if it existed I would not be interested in it.

It's called caricature, although I actually have played with DMs who run those sorts of games. I also call them "Pinkeye Campaigns" although a gaming buddy in Toronto coined that term, and I can't take credit for it.

You say: ‘most people do not play RPGs in order to suck.’ I agree. But, do I suck? Do you? No!

If it doesn't apply to you, then why does it bother you?

As a real person, I’m no-one special, but a game where ‘no-one special’ like me can make a difference is more interesting to me than one where I’m playing an almost indestructible combat überman whose only thought is to smite his enemies. (That last sentence was an exageration to prove the point.) You obviously are not familiar with my gaming style, because your descriptions bear no resemblance to the games I run. Stereotyping and stigmatising gamers who play in a different way to you is not the way to help the (apparently dying) hobby we share.

You seem to be missing something, though. You don't play differently than I do. I'm running two games right now. Both are low magic. My players in one of my games ASKED for crit charts, because they were Old Skool gamers who played games like Rolemaster with its delicious and extensive crit charts. I've never had so much fun just reading through crit charts.

In my RPGnow cart, I have a book called 10,000,000 ways to die:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=3870&

I make fun of the sometimes errors and problems that arise in the style of gaming I run, myself. If those don't apply to you, great! We're on the same team.

In my experience, maybe 25% of D&D players are first and foremost ego-trippers who play because of empowerment/compotence fantasies. If this is what is in a player or DM's 'red beating heart', in my experience they socialize poorly and are very difficult to integrate into a play group. Almost all the rules lawyers, munchkins, disruptive players, and players that turned in game issues into threats of violence, hysterics, and other sorts of out of game issues where in thier 'red beating hearts' primarily into the game because of empowerment fantasies. I've gotten to the point that if I think I can identify you as an ego gamer, that I'll discourage you from being at my table.

You should do so. But those players have different issues than merely enacting a power fantasy.

Fortunately, there are all sorts of reasons why people play D&D, and for most people empowerment fantasies are a secondary attraction.

When you save the world, that's a power fantasy. When you toss the One Ring into the lava in Mt. Doom in Mordor where the shadow lies with Sauron's minions bearing down hot on your heels, even if you have suffered tremendously to get there and you're missing a finger because Gollum bit it off, nevertheless, at that particular moment in time you are the most important person in the world.

You can call it a secondary attraction, if you like. But try removing it from the game. And see how many times your players come back.

For example, I've never had a female gamer in my group that primarily played because it was a power trip.

I have. I sat down at an RPGA table in Oregon at a Con. The DM asked the players to describe themselves. We all gave a brief description of our characters, except for one woman who was playing an elven bard. She had a beautiful longsword. She had long, beautiful golden hair. She had a long, beautiful cloak. Everything about her character was beautiful. We have, ever since, referred to her as The Beautiful Girl.

Now, looking at her? She was a very physically unattractive person. And it was very obvious, from her playing style, that she was living out a fantasy where she was very desirable and beautiful. And while I snickered at her description of herself - the DM had to interrupt and tell her to summarize - I don't make fun of her living out a fantasy through the game. That's what most of us do. It's roleplaying.

D&D players include problem solvers that play D&D like it was a puzzle and are not interested in having powerful characters so much as proving themselves by solving puzzles through thier wits and not through in game abilities. Ego trip? Possibly, but it is a radically different one than the sort that demands big swords and powerful spells. These players tend to dislike games where thier characters are given big swords and powerful spells, because they feel that these abilities detract from thier oppurtunity to show off thier problem solving ability. It's not fun for them to be able to use brute force, even to some extent creatively applied force, to solve the problem because they see this as something anyone can do.

Ah yes, the MENSA gamers. The people who play RPGs like the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. In pen, no less. Not pencil, like the rest of us wimps. You assume that the word "power" concerns violence or strength, but if anything, I'd say some of the guys like this I've run across are MORE concerned with the game as a power fantasy, because they want to exhibit the power of their mind.

You're proving my point, here, especially with phrases like "because they feel that these abilities detract from their oppurtunity to show off their problem solving ability" and the fact that they don't like to use force because "they see this as something anyone can do." That's definitely a power fantasy.

So by no means assume that every player out there is looking to have a powerful character.

People express or desire power in different ways. You can be a powerful leader (Charisma), a person to whom people come to for sagely advice (Wisdom), an intelligent solver of puzzles (Intelligence), someone who moves like a blur (Dexterity), or someone like Marv in Sin City who says "I can take it!" (Constitution).

Very few people want to play powerLESS characters, though their idea of what constitutes power may differ from player to player.

It's always amazing to me that any discussion on low magic gaming somehow seems to turn into a fairly angry, rancorous discussion.

I don't see why it should surprise you. You're often in the middle of many of those discussions expressing your views with great and articulate passion. In fact, since I often participate in those discussions, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I can nearly count on rubbing shoulders with you in these discussions. If you didn't enjoy it, I think you'd be spending your time somewhere else.

I'm not sure why it seems to bother some people that other people may want to run a low magic game, and bother them even more that they may want to use a D&D--or at least d20--ruleset in order to do so. I mean, if you ask they say that it does't bother them, and "whatever floats your boat" but if you just start talking about low magic gaming, you invariably get all kinds of replies about how you can't do that, and it's wrong and perverse to even try, and you must be the single exception to every other D&D player who will doubtless hate what you are trying to do because D&D is about being something else entirely. I mean, seriously--I don't get it.

In this case, you seem to be reading another discussion, because that's not what's happening here.

I do. You have basically two types.

Those who divide the world into two types, and those who don't?

1) Players who were burned by a DM who, under the guise of running a 'low magic/grim and gritty campaign', ran a game of personal ego fulfillment in which the PC's were mere pawns in thier fantasies, the PC's where not allowed to succeed, the DM frequently tried to play the player's characters for them, and so forth. 2) Players who are themselves ego trippers, and who if they are not allowed to control the game, play the DM's NPC's for themselves, set the rules of the game, and maximize thier character to the point that virtually nothing is a challenge, will accuse the DM of being a control freak as per #1 above. What happens in a discussion of a low magic campaign is that the players who fall into category #1, assume that all the DM's who are talking about low magic are @#$!@#! megalomaniacs and vent thier hatred at you for what some other DM did to them. And all the players of category #2, who are themselves #$$!@#$ megalomaniacs, come and vent thier hatred at anyone or anything that suggests maybe they shouldn't be allowed to have thier way on everything because to these ego addicts, the mere suggestion that low magic D&D is legitimate and fun is a threat to one of the few things in life that gives them a sense of satisfaction and that threat has to be squashed at every oppurtunity.

Or, there could be people who legitimately have points on both sides who nevertheless intelligently disagree, and have something to say.

Just a thought.

I think what happens is that you simply have a clash of gaming styles, with people expressing their desires and preferred method of play. Though I certainly disagree with some people in these discussions, I've never felt that anyone was simply venting their misplaced frustrations from past gaming experiences on me. I simply believe that they somewhere, they are probably sitting at a keyboard at work, as bored as I am, and they want to carry on a vigorous discussion about a game they love very much.

 

[theemrys]

Don't know if someone already suggested this or not, but one idea would be to give the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting by kenzerco a try. It's D20 and written in a "low magic" type of style, but can be scaled however you want. The setting doesn't rely on a lot of magic which is nice. I personally run a "rare magic" game... Magic exists and in some cases it can be powerful (like in "regular" D20), however you don't find much of it.

As for creatures, I find you can still run a low magic game easy with D20.. you just might need to re-evaluate the CRs of some creatures.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't see why it should surprise you. You're often in the middle of many of those discussions expressing your views with great and articulate passion. In fact, since I often participate in those discussions, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I can nearly count on rubbing shoulders with you in these discussions. If you didn't enjoy it, I think you'd be spending your time somewhere else.

Who said anything about enjoying it? I very much enjoy low magic discussions, which is why I frequent them. I don't understand why it brings out the "you're playing D&D wrong, you Philistine!" crowd. In fact, I'm not sure I understand why there is a "you're playing D&D wrong, you Philistine!" crowd at all.

It really seems you're implying that I'm being disingenious about something with that reply of yours, but I can't seem to figure out what you think it is. :shrug:

In this case, you seem to be reading another discussion, because that's not what's happening here.

Hmmm....

No, that's not it. And yes it is happening here.

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim - while I agree with your (1) and (2) analysis, I disagree that all power-trippers are antisocial, unpleasant types.

I don't think I said that they all were. I said that almost all the anti-social, unpleasant types I'd met were power-trippers, but the reverse implication isn't true. Not all the power-trippers I've met are anti-social, unpleasant types.

 

[Mallus]

In my experience, maybe 25% of D&D players are first and foremost ego-trippers who play because of empowerment/competence fantasies.

In my experience, that's like saying 25% of pornography users are first and foremost trying to get off...

Which is to say that your percentage is a little on the low side.

Not that there's anything wrong with a desire to indulge ones power-fantasies under the framework of an RPG (or that's there's anything wrong with getting off, for that matter). It's hard to deny that's a core part of their allure, in the same way escapist, heroic fictions are predicated on the reader identifying with mighty and/or hyper-competent protagonists, like Conan or Achilles. Or Captain Kirk, or McGyver, or Sherlock Holmes, etc. Even little Frodo Baggins fits the bill, with his amazing, Ring-defying hyper-humility (and willpower).

Whether a players indulgence of said power-fantasies proves socially disruptive to the rest of their gaming group is an entirely seperate matter.

 

[S'mon]

I don't think I said that they all were. I said that almost all the anti-social, unpleasant types I'd met were power-trippers, but the reverse implication isn't true. Not all the power-trippers I've met are anti-social, unpleasant types.

OK, sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[Celebrim]

You should do so. But those players have different issues than merely enacting a power fantasy.

I don't deny it. However, the issues and the enacting of a power fantasy were in many ways related. I've met alot of gamers with issues, but generally its only the ones running power fantasies that are disruptive of play.

When you save the world, that's a power fantasy. When you toss the One Ring into the lava in Mt. Doom in Mordor where the shadow lies with Sauron's minions bearing down hot on your heels, even if you have suffered tremendously to get there and you're missing a finger because Gollum bit it off, nevertheless, at that particular moment in time you are the most important person in the world.

Or even if you struggled through the filth while dying of tetnus you contracted from a rusty nail? You are moving the goal posts. If all that is required is tremendous success as an ultimate reward, then the character can still 'suck' and doesn't need a big sword or big spells. You earlier implied that all D&D players played the game as a particular sort of power fantasy, namely that they would play empowered characters that don't 'suck'. But you can haul the ring to Mt. Doom as a 1st level commoner, and still thereby be the most important person in the world.

You can call it a secondary attraction, if you like. But try removing it from the game. And see how many times your players come back.

If you retroactively change your definition of the 'red beating heart of D&D' to merely the oppurtunity to achieve success, then sure if I remove the oppurtunity to succeed from the game few players will come back. But if I remove the big swords and big spells from the game, that's an entirely different thing because the oppurtunity to achieve success is still there, but not the opputunity to 'swing big swords and cast big spells' which you earlier defined as essential to the game.

I have. I sat down at an RPGA table in Oregon at a Con. The DM asked the players to describe themselves. We all gave a brief description of our characters, except for one woman who was playing an elven bard. She had a beautiful longsword. She had long, beautiful golden hair. She had a long, beautiful cloak. Everything about her character was beautiful. We have, ever since, referred to her as The Beautiful Girl.

Now, looking at her? She was a very physically unattractive person. And it was very obvious, from her playing style, that she was living out a fantasy where she was very desirable and beautiful. And while I snickered at her description of herself - the DM had to interrupt and tell her to summarize - I don't make fun of her living out a fantasy through the game. That's what most of us do. It's roleplaying...People express or desire power in different ways. You can be a powerful leader (Charisma), a person to whom people come to for sagely advice (Wisdom), an intelligent solver of puzzles (Intelligence), someone who moves like a blur (Dexterity), or someone like Marv in Sin City who says "I can take it!" (Constitution).

I did not assume that compentancy would be limited only to being competant in one particular thing. Of course people can ego trip over different sorts of competancy. But you seem unable to catch that some people, even some seeking an ego trip, see character competancy as a hinderance to what they want in the game.

Ah yes, the MENSA gamers. The people who play RPGs like the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. In pen, no less. Not pencil, like the rest of us wimps. You assume that the word "power" concerns violence or strength, but if anything, I'd say some of the guys like this I've run across are MORE concerned with the game as a power fantasy, because they want to exhibit the power of their mind.

Again, you are making assumptions that are unwarranted. A player that wants to play a character with 22 INT and who is skillful in everything, falls into the category of 'power gamer' that I've been talking about. But a player that wants to play a character with only ordinary abilities because if the character had extraordinary abilities it would make the game 'too easy' or would interfere with his ability to demonstrate his wit as a player may be an 'ego gamer', but he's a very different sort than the one that wants to vicariously swing a big sword or be a very beautiful or desirable person.

You're proving my point, here, especially with phrases like "because they feel that these abilities detract from their oppurtunity to show off their problem solving ability" and the fact that they don't like to use force because "they see this as something anyone can do." That's definitely a power fantasy.

One that has absolutely nothing to do with character competancy.

Very few people want to play powerLESS characters, though their idea of what constitutes power may differ from player to player.

Except, explicitly, this is one type that does. I've met problem solvers that get bigger kicks out playing powerless characters than powerful ones.

Those who divide the world into two types, and those who don't?

Those that respond to what someone else actually writes, and those that can't and instead respond to what they themselves write.

Or, there could be people who legitimately have points on both sides who nevertheless intelligently disagree, and have something to say.

I believe if you'll look I was responding to a question that refered specifically to those people who do not seem to be intelligently disagreeing, but instead seem to have some emotional stake in disproving that D&D can be played any other way than power gaming.

It's not at all clear why someone with one preferred gaming style should want to not only advocate thier own style of play, but also denounce any other. I think Hobo is quite right. A discussion of grim and gritty or low magic games invariably draws alot of people who are quite angry about something and who will say that not only are grim and gritty games not thier preferred style, but that they are badwrongfun and/or impossible.