Mundane vs. Fantastical

[billd91]

Are you honestly going to claim that a no caster, no non-human party was anything other than an extreme rarity in any edition of D&D?

While, it may be true that "my playstyle" wasn't universal, I'm thinking that it was a heck of a lot more common than what you're referring to.

How's this for a test? Show me a D&D setting, whether TSR/WotC or 3rd party that's low magic/mundane and I'll match it with two settings that are not. We'll see who runs out of settings first.

How many different historical greenbooks did TSR produce in 2nd edition? Celts, Vikings, Crusades, Mighty Fortress, Age of Heroes, Rome. Excluding Age of Heroes which is a bit more wahoo, we're looking at 5 different campaign spins right there with very low levels of magic and very few spellcasters and very few fantastic monsters.

I have no idea how many people actually played in campaigns like these, but it's not like there was lack of support. Even the Complete Fighters Handbook, back in the day, talked about playing all military, all fighter campaigns.

Looking at more recent developments, Green Ronin's Sanctuary setting isn't completely devoid of spellcasters, but they are significantly hampered and the setting is much more mundane than most.

There have been PLENTY of people on these very boards who have talked about playing low-magic and grittier campaigns, with a lot fewer magic items, a lot less spellcasting. Many have, indeed, lamented that 3e wasn't very amenable to that style (something I believe they are wrong about, but there it is). Clearly, it's not exactly some weird outlier of a campaign idea to focus on the more mundane or less wahoo.

 

[amysrevenge]

How I'm defining "mundane" is "your character is no more powerful than an especially clever or strong farmer."
[snip]
There's two ways to make this more mundane. The first is to cut out PC powers so that they are more in line with basic effects. This, I'm fairly sure, will wildly unbalance the game when you go up against a group of kobolds with only basic attacks, and, moreover, gets rid of character options, which are a lot of fun to have.

Oh my.

I can see the appeal of such a game, but why in the world would you use ANY version of D&D to play it?

I think that keeping the PCs as "no more powerful than a farmer" would suggest that a group of kobolds SHOULD smash them to pieces.

 

[Desdichado]

I've come to the realization over the last few years that what I've long professed and what I actually do in this regard are at odds.

I've long been a fan of "low fantasy" and that means low level PC's fighting feral housecats in the forest and being seriously threatened by them, right?

Well, it turns out my games feature a lot of the fantastic after all. I didn't really think that it was all that fantastic, but on reflection, it is. Sure; I like to have random thugs attack the PC's frequently, but I rarely put them up against animals. I their serious (as opposed to simply random) encounters are always with something weird.

Part of the reason for this is that I tend to run games like fantasy X-files. Sure, the fantasy world itself might not be too fantastic, really, but the PCs tend to have jobs that ensure they go out of their way to find what there is and confront it. So, I certainly don't think of myself as a high fantasy type guy, but I have relatively fantastical campaigns after all.

Then again, high fantasy is not equivalent to high wahoo. The two are only tangentially related.

That said, laser bears or lightning scorpions aren't my idea of fantasy. That is, to a certain extent, lasersharking. I like my fantasy creatures to be more coherent than simply "it's a scorpion, except really big and it shoots lightning out of its tail." To be unusual or unique, a creature doesn't require some mechanical gizmo. In fact, I think the "lets just give him lightning damage" syndrome is counterproductive to making interesting creatures. A crutch, if you will.

More and more I'm inspired by an almost pseudo-scientific take, influenced by Barsoom. Edgar Rice Burroughs sent John Carter to a fantasy planet, and did he have actual Earth animals on his fantasy planet? Of course not, that would ridiculous. He had animals that filled the same role but a banth was fundamentally different from a lion; a calot was fundamentally different from a dog, and a thoat was fundamentally different from a horse. They just stood in the same role.

My latest fantasy settings, if I'm going to include mundane animals (like people) I want to have some kind of backstory explaining why regular earth animals (and people) are on this completely different world, and how did they get to be the same? The way evolution works, there's no way that a different world would end up with wolves exactly, or bears, or people, unless they were brought there.

So I tend to have an earth-diaspora; people came to my fantasy world in the distant past, bringing with them some (but not all) of their animals, and then they adapted slightly in unique ways to their new environment.

However, the native animals are much, much more alien. More like the banths, thoats and calots, or even more alien yet.

Sigh. I'm rambling, aren't I? I'm not sure where I'm weighing in on the question, other than talking about things I've done in the past about the issue. I've certainly seen an evolution of my viewpoint just in the last few years.

 

[I'm A Banana]

All you need to do is refluff what a farmer is.

Drunk Farmer = Bugbear Warrior (Brute 5)
Change morningstar to cudgel.
Change skullthumper to drunken smash.
Change predatory eye to sucker punch.

There. 1st level PCs are well beneath a common NPC.

Well, it does suggest something a little odd about a world filled with drunken farmers that are about the same level of threat as a DIRE WOLF.

But yeah, I agree, you're basically right. With enough prep time, this kind of nudging could probably hide a lot of the wahoo in 4e abilities, it's true (dire wolves become "angry junkyard dogs" or whatever). It is extra work that I don't have to do if I just stick to playing low-level 3e (where an angry junkyard dog really is a level 2-3 challenge! For the whole party!), though.

It's also the kind of nudging where, if a 3rd party publisher did it FOR me and gave it to me in a nice, shiny hardcover, I would happily pay $35 for it.

The re-fluffing is good, but it won't solve all the problems, either (I mentioned before HP and the death and dying rules as a pretty thick inhibitor to playing a character who is on par or less than many NPC's).

I can see the appeal of such a game, but why in the world would you use ANY version of D&D to play it?

I think that keeping the PCs as "no more powerful than a farmer" would suggest that a group of kobolds SHOULD smash them to pieces.

People have used every version of D&D to play it, and have enjoyed themselves well enough. And the way around the "kobold smash!" idea is that kobolds aren't necessarily any more powerful than a farmer, either. The PC's and monsters and NPC's aren't different categories of creature occupying different "tiers" that never overlap or interact.

 

[Hussar]

How many different historical greenbooks did TSR produce in 2nd edition? Celts, Vikings, Crusades, Mighty Fortress, Age of Heroes, Rome. Excluding Age of Heroes which is a bit more wahoo, we're looking at 5 different campaign spins right there with very low levels of magic and very few spellcasters and very few fantastic monsters.

I have no idea how many people actually played in campaigns like these, but it's not like there was lack of support. Even the Complete Fighters Handbook, back in the day, talked about playing all military, all fighter campaigns.

Looking at more recent developments, Green Ronin's Sanctuary setting isn't completely devoid of spellcasters, but they are significantly hampered and the setting is much more mundane than most.

There have been PLENTY of people on these very boards who have talked about playing low-magic and grittier campaigns, with a lot fewer magic items, a lot less spellcasting. Many have, indeed, lamented that 3e wasn't very amenable to that style (something I believe they are wrong about, but there it is). Clearly, it's not exactly some weird outlier of a campaign idea to focus on the more mundane or less wahoo.

I already said that there are some out there. Sure. But, overwhelmingly, there are more fantastic settings out there than mundane. The fact that you have to go to twenty year old out of print books pretty much says it all doesn't it? Which is more popular? Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Planescape and Dark Sun or one of those green book TSR products? Never mind Scarred Lands, Iron Kingdoms, Ptolus, or a plethora of products.

I like less fantastic actually. I really do. When I'm playing GURPS. D&D? Why? I can't imagine a less suitable system. The level system alone doesn't work for a low fantastic setting. When a character by third level (in any edition) is pretty much unkillable by a town guard, you're already into wahoo country.

You want grim and gritty, play Warhammer fantasty. GURPS fantasy. Chivalry and Sorcery works as well. D&D? Sure, you can fold, spindle and maul it into shape, but, it takes a huge amount of work to do so.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I already said that there are some out there. Sure. But, overwhelmingly, there are more fantastic settings out there than mundane. The fact that you have to go to twenty year old out of print books pretty much says it all doesn't it? Which is more popular? Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Planescape and Dark Sun or one of those green book TSR products? Never mind Scarred Lands, Iron Kingdoms, Ptolus, or a plethora of products.

I like less fantastic actually. I really do. When I'm playing GURPS. D&D? Why? I can't imagine a less suitable system. The level system alone doesn't work for a low fantastic setting. When a character by third level (in any edition) is pretty much unkillable by a town guard, you're already into wahoo country.

You want grim and gritty, play Warhammer fantasty. GURPS fantasy. Chivalry and Sorcery works as well. D&D? Sure, you can fold, spindle and maul it into shape, but, it takes a huge amount of work to do so.

Argument supporting high fantasy, wahoo-styled settings

Dark Sun

 

[Hussar]

You don't think that Dark Sun is a highly fantastic setting? Nowhere did I say high fantasy, because that would certainly be wrong. But, in Dark Sun, you have the following:

• PC's start at 4th level (so much for the whole Strong Farmer thing)
• Psionics
• Giant Grasshoppers as a PC race (actually, scratch that, giant, psionic grasshoppers as a PC Race)
• Wizards who kill the land by casting their spells
• A land ruled by a godlike Dragon

So, how is this not highly fantastic and pretty wahoo to boot? Using KM's defintions of Wahoo, starting at 4th level already puts it into wahoo territory.

 

[Desdichado]

You want grim and gritty, play Warhammer fantasty. GURPS fantasy. Chivalry and Sorcery works as well. D&D? Sure, you can fold, spindle and maul it into shape, but, it takes a huge amount of work to do so.

No, it really doesn't take a huge amount of work at all. In fact, it's incredibly simple.

For my latest lowish fantasy game, all I did was finish the game before the PC's got above about 6th-7th level.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No, it really doesn't take a huge amount of work at all. In fact, it's incredibly simple.

Seconded.

 

[Rallek]

Are you honestly going to claim that a no caster, no non-human party was anything other than an extreme rarity in any edition of D&D?

One of the groups I've run games for loves to play exactly this. They love gritty, they love low magic, they love low fantasy, and they especially love to do all of those at once.

Now in fairness we generally use Warhammer to get that particular fantasy fix, but we've done it with D&D in 2nd ed, 3rd ed, and even 3.5. I don't mean to suggest that it's how everyone plays, but it's how they (that group) like to play more often than not.

Just my 2cp.