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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MThibault" data-source="post: 466845" data-attributes="member: 7971">That a cool take on it: the Brothers Grimm Low-Magic Campaign Setting.  But in a fantasy world, you can just alter the ecology of the monsters to keep their numbers or power low.Outsiders might be bound by divine laws when on the material plane, even the evil ones risk starting a divine war in the heavens if they cross certain lines (i.e. try to directly take control of the material plane).  Beholders were created in an arcane mishap involving the flesh golems and beach toys, there are only 4 known in the world and they don't reproduce. Dragons are even more rare and they sleep for centuries between feedings.I agree that a low-magic feel will be broken if there are tons of magical monsters around.  But not everyone will agree, so a generic system should account for it.  Altering CRs is one way to go.  Beowulf died killing the dragon (Oops, should have put in a spoiler alert.) but there was a hero that could and did kill the dragon.  As long as there is one hero per generation who can smack down the magical beasts when they get uppity, you won't have the magical beasts dominating the land.If you take the high-heroism out of the game along with the magic, then it becomes even more difficult to rationalize not prostrating in front of the cloud giant Overlords.  If the PCs aren't heroic, then there shouldn't be monsters that are -- unless of course you want an Elminsterish deus ex machina to handle the crowd control while the PCs just nab the buried treasure.Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a sourcebook/rulebook that has 10 or 15 premade low-magic "plug-ins" for D&D.  Each would be setting neutral, but would be based on a specific set of assumptions.  If you put these assumptions up front and clearly stated then DMs might be able to pick the one that is closest to their vision and do a final tweak before applying it to their campaign world.  It would be a lot of work, still, to retrofit your campaign setting with any new assumptions (you'd have to change many of the NPCs, monsters and perhaps even politics and sociology).  But if you are just starting on your setting (or you work from the "inside out" while the campaign is in progress, it might be a very useful tool.  If you included a mini-setting (a detailed country or region) to illustrate the rules plug-in (and which could be dropped into an existing setting) then it might even be an interesting read for those who never end up using the material in a game.Cheers.[edited my sourcebook/rulebook nomenclature]</blockquote>

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