Low magic vs. magic as a plot device

[Psion]

As sort of a cheap shortcut, I don't mind making it powerful, scary, and unpredictable for NPCs but relatively reliable for PCs.

I think you misunderstand what I mean by scary. What I mean is that whoever hold the plot-motivating power is exteremely threatening to anyone that gets in their way.

In NPCs, this is good, because it gives the PCs a reason to act to stop them.

In PCs its problematic, because handing them such power means that the campaign could become a cakewalk.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Look all I'm saying is that limiting the reliability of magic and making it not free maps less to fiction than the current D&D system. Building an arguement for destroying the spell casting system based on how it maps to fiction silly. Admit you don't like D&D magic and you want to change it. Don't try to use silly arguements like "it doesn't match fiction". In many cases there is powerful and reliable magic, and a true fantasy feel.

There's a world of difference between "destroying the spell casting system" and "altering the spell-casting system to make it work the way I want to in my world." Wanting to write your own adventure doesn't imply that you hated Keep on the Borderlands. Clearly, a poster who thinks the current unmodified system "maps less to fiction" either A) prefers different fiction than that you prefer, or B) takes a different reading position on the same fiction that you both read. Neither are "silly" and neither makes a poster's position a "silly argument."

If the poster suggested that his or her preferred magical system (or Franken-system) be used by everyone, like it or not...well, that would be silly. To put it nicely.

Cugel wasn't really a mage, more of a thief with a high use magic device. Sure Gandolf only cast a handfull of spells, but it wasn't because magic wasn't free or reliable. Also, Gandolf was an NPC in the story. He only used his magic to further the plot when the "players"/main characters screwed up. I suspect many GM's would like to religate wizards to that role if they had the chance.

The way I understand it, Gandalf was one of the Maia, servants of the Valar. His magical ability wasn't resident in himself; it came from beyond. Sure, his fireworks were due to his understanding of how the world worked (including the pine cones and "flash that killed several goblins" in The Hobbit), but anything larger was based upon his relationship with the Valar. And, even so, magic has unexpected consequences. The door Gandalf is trying to hold is burst asunder, and there is a cave in. He has obviously overdone himself, and he is more tired than he ever remembers being. Maybe these are not "gee whiz" effects, but they do occur. They would not occur using the straight D&D magic system.

Also, it's tough to say that Gandalf was an NPC in the story. He was clearly one of the protagonists.

There are lots of things that don't map to D&D ratio's either. Only two or three encounters through all of Moria. Come on, on a D&D ratio of monsters to rooms, there should have been several hundred if not thousands of encounters in Moria. Everything was less in LOTR compared to the average game, the fact that magic is the only focus of the rules gerrymandering shows the base line bias.

While I agree that there are many things that don't map to D&D, I have noticed that there is a lot of "rules gerrymandering" on the EnWorld forums about feats, monsters, combat, character classes, and even cows , fergoshsakes. So, if that's where you're getting your "base line bias" I doubt you'll convince very many readers....?

Look, I'm not saying you can't nerf the heck out of magic in your game. I'm just saying don't come to the boards with some total bs arguement that there is no high level magic, or magic never works, or magic is much harder to cast in fiction and therefore magic must be nerfed in the game. It's just not true .

Um...I'm not sure where you read the argument you're arguing against in the quotation above, but I'm pretty sure nothing remotely like that was said on this thread.

Correct me if I am wrong, but a poster described personal feelings about how the D&D magic system interacted with said poster's expectations of how a magic system should "feel" within a personal campaign world. Said poster didn't say, "How do we force WotC to change everything to my perspective for version 4.0?"

The really cool thing about d20 is its level of customization. With the OGL, there's a lot of material out there to select from, so DMs can have the world they really want with less "background" work and more "foreground" (ie, adventure design & gaming) time. There is so much d20 material out there that it makes sense to ask "Given that I want effect A, what should I consider?" There's a pretty good chance that someone on these forums wanted effect A also, or read something relating to effect A. Heck, I asked for pointers on effect H not so long ago myself.

For the record, none of these "feel" questions actually relates to whether or not huge magical effects exist. They relate to how common they are, what their costs are, and whether or not they should be perfectly reliable. It's pretty easy to come up with a campaign world where magic "feels" mythic/folkloric, but a Necromancer or Iron Lich can arise. Both myth and folklore contain many examples of "high effect, high cost" magic. What seems to be rather rarer is "high effect, no cost" magic.

Raven Crowking

 

[barsoomcore]

Actually, Mr. Barsoomcore, I think I have to dispute this.

You go right ahead. Discussions on Star Trek are of zero interest to me. Brought it up only as an example. If you want to say the example is a bad one, I have no reason to contest that. The principle remains.

The prices, item creation rules and such are just short hand for the games that want them. If you don't want them, toss them out and have a world where magic is rare.

That's brilliant. You mean, "Change some of the rules so the magic system fits your vision as to how it should work."

Huh. What a great idea. Wait, isn't that what the rest of us have been talking about from post one?

Sheesh.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Kings don't train armies of 1,000 wizards because they can't round up 1,000 people in their whole kindom that have the ability to become mages.

This requires changing the way magic works in the world. Specifically, changing the bit in the DMG where it says that anybody with the intelligence (11+) and the training can become a wizard.
Personally, that is the first change I would make as a house rule. And I would carry that over into the design of the game world, to make it very clear that magic is not science.
Would other changes be necessary to make magic feel mysterious and wondrous? Possibly. But this change is certainly among them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

And as such I have no problem with it. Sounds like a cool idea. Where I start to get my feathers ruffled is when the new system start from the premise that casting magic is a bad thing and if you do it you must immediatly pay a character penalty (HP, XP, or Abilities). That way of making something rare by punishing all that use it is lame.

Where my feathers get ruffled is the assumption that a person who says that "this magic system doesn't have the right feel because there seems to be no cost/unpredictability to magic" is somehow equated with a person who says "casting magic is a bad thing." But I am guessing that you've had some bad experiences in that regard and are therefore a bit defensive?

In any event, I have been reading a few consistent ideas in this thread related to the feel of magic, and one of them is that magic should tempt the user to go to far. As has been pointed out, something that tempts the user to go to far must offer an increase in power, not a decrease. The Shadow Weave stuff in Forgotten Realms is a pretty good example. It gives some pretty good bonuses in immediate power for some penalties that might prove nasty later.

Another thing that I have noted is a concern about the predictability of magic. Making magic available through several routes (folk charms and thaumaturgy in the Medieval Player's Guide, magical tattoos and gem magic in the Forgotten Realms, rune casting in Vikings, etc.) makes things harder to predict. If the DM gives some thought as to where spell energy comes from, alterations to some spells may also make sense.

None of this is designed to nerf the spell caster. It is to make the spell caster a unique, flavorful individual with powers others cannot easily duplicate.

Raven Crowking

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think this strikes at the heart of the issue. Some think mages should be an active part of the game that takes action as often as the fighters and with similar effectiveness in taking down monsters, solving puzzles and in general completing the adventure. Some think any solution that involves magic is cheap and should be pushed to the back ground and crushed. IE: wouldn't it be great if all magic was NPC magic and all the players could do is swing their swords. (I realize that is a broad stroke and some truely neuanced positions, I apologize in advance.)

After all, if magic is only a plot device or can only be rarely used, what is a player supposed to do in the game if they are playing a mage. If that character stops using magic as a tool, what are they doing? You don't have hitpoints, skills, or feats on anyone else. You are just sitting there trying not to get killed. That doesn't fit with my feel for the great wizards of fiction at all.

In a 2nd Edition game world, I made all arcane magic manna based, with reduced manna costs for having a spellcaster theme (ie, a spider-based caster casting spidery spells). Manna costs replaced the spells/day, spells/level rules, and you could gain extra manna through special components, places, times, and items. One of the things that made spellcasters "great" was that they had learned more ways to gain extra manna than other "lesser" spellcasters.

In this game, non-spellcaster PCs also had manna, and a knowledgeable mage could use them as a "manna sump" -- essentially casting spells by burning off their manna.

It was pretty cool for the wizards, but not so cool that everyone wanted to be a wizard. The "feel" was better, though there were some adjustments needed to the mechanics from time to time. You could accidently drain a manna sump dry, fatiguing or even killing him if you pushed him too far.

In those days, low-level wizards were largely still one-shot wonders. Not so bad as in 1st Edition, maybe, but still....It helped. And it was fun to play.

Raven Crowking

 

[Raven Crowking]

And the point of all that was just to say what I don't like in different ways of balancing magic. Just my opinion... Must have struck a nerve.

Actually, I think the nerve you struck was through insulting other people's systems, sight unseen, and the people who are playing them. By calling another person's preference (or reasons therefore) a "silly argument" or by trying to tell them that they "just don't like magic" or words to that effect, you are attacking the poster, not the idea.

 

[Faraer]

Actually, if it were treated as technology for the society as a whole, that'd be okay, too. It's just that D&D has this magic that seems ubiquitous and straightforward and predictable, but doesn't have much effect on society as a whole. You've got medieval towns and stuff, but guys who can literally cure disease over and over again every day. Something's not very logical with that picture.

Gary Gygax did think through how a society with AD&D magic would work, and he sets it out explicitly in Living Fantasy.

 

[hewligan]

I guess I come from the low-magic school when it comes to my fiction and my GMing. I find high-magic campaigns to be rather difficult to make internally consistent.

It all boils down to the fact that I just don't like having too many mortals running around with the power to level cities in one go. Books like Lord of the Rings make little specific mention of actual spell use. Instead magic is more like a power that imbues individuals. In the Forgotten Realms, perhaps the highest-magic world I have ever GMed, magic is all over the joint. I loved the FR, but I must admit that I found it tough to control the power-gamers from min-maxing their characters.

Each to their own, though!

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Another thing that I have noted is a concern about the predictability of magic. Making magic available through several routes (folk charms and thaumaturgy in the Medieval Player's Guide, magical tattoos and gem magic in the Forgotten Realms, rune casting in Vikings, etc.) makes things harder to predict. If the DM gives some thought as to where spell energy comes from, alterations to some spells may also make sense.

None of this is designed to nerf the spell caster. It is to make the spell caster a unique, flavorful individual with powers others cannot easily duplicate.

Kind of off-topic here, but I had at one time put some thought into making "spell preparation" feel a little more magical. Perhaps rather than "memorizing" spells as written on the caster's mind, you could have different mages utilize other methods to achieve the same result:
1: After resting and focusing his mind, the wizard performs rituals to call mystical spirits to serve him. These spirits hover around, invisible (but can be seen with detect magic), and when "casting" the spell he sends forth the spirit to do its work. The power of the wizard determines how many he can have bound to him at any one time. For all mechanical purposes, this is exactly identical to spell-memorization and casting.
2: The wizard's ritual consists of crafting small tokens from his mystical clay (this replaces his spellbook). Each token corresponds to a spell (small arrow for Magic Missile), and when "casting" he throws or crushes the token. If he has too many at once (exceeding spells per day cap), there is a chance they interfere with each other and invoke prematurely.
3: The wizard's ritual consists of scribing runes on his staff (which replaces his spellbook). When "casting" the rune disappears from the staff. If he inscribes too many at once (exceeding spells per day) there is a chance that he invokes the wrong one by accident.

None of these nerf the caster, but all add some flavor and variety. The key is to make up more and keep them secret from the players. The biggest difficulties to having magic feel magical is that players know what the rules for NPCs are, know what the spells are, and know how casting works for NPCs. Spells they've never seen before, NPCs who cast differently, NPCs with non-book magic progression - these changes will establish that magic isn't as predictable as they suppose.