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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tauton_ikhnos" data-source="post: 1426991" data-attributes="member: 16195">Positive spinoff from this<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80232&page=1&pp=25" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80232&page=1&pp=25</a>Already a thread about how to run a good high-level campaign. And thread about whether or not low-magic, grim-n-gritty is good. So this thread may be redundant, but I think it has something to offer.This is how to run a good, mythic-like story with high magic. A number of people have said this is impossible, that high magic and low magic are two entirely different styles. I say that Story is stronger than they think. Here is the example I gave there, editted and expanded a bit:Basic PlotPoseidon is angry. He curses Odysseus. Odysseus does not have the ability to fight off curse, so he goes long way around. Meanwhile, Odysseus is hoping his wife will remain true to him. Notes: Poseidon nerfs Odysseus' ability to travel quickly and efficiently home, but does not do anything else to him. Odysseus would normally expect his character to get home quickly and easily - the whole story is tied up in the fact that the GM has prevented that in some way.For a high magic D&D game, the Trojan war is interplanar, perhaps an assault on the Suahagin Sub-Dimension of Water; and Poseidon has put a divine-level dimensional anchor on Odysseus. Not any of the rest of his party, mind you - anyone who abandons Odysseus can get home very easily!The JourneyOdysseus travels the ocean, blown from port to port, encountering strange and terrifying things. He must use his guile, a few magic items, a lot of allies, and the sacrifice of a lot of his men to survive.Notes: The important bit here is heroic journey. Already established that Odysseus can not gate home, so need to provide alternate option! Also, this is where GM follows PirateCat's credo: set up bastardly situations, plan for the PCs to fail, then say Yes during game when they try stuff.For a high magic D&D game, I like idea of interplanar river that flows through multitude of planes and uses natural portals (gradual shifts) to get around dimensional anchor. This provides difficult method of getting home, lets Odysseus show off boating skills he never gets to use anymore, and plenty of places for Odysseus to get into trouble.HOWEVER, note that Odysseus may decide on alternate tactic: teleport his buddies home to watch over his wife, use scrying and communication to talk with her, and then use Fly and similar to move along the river as quickly as possible. This is a good thing, and allows you to add another mythic element - the rescue.???, you say? Yes, a rescue. A screen-casting wizard is one of the wife's suitors. He has to follow the rules of civilized society, but no one has to know about poor, lost Odysseus. He'll even fake scrying and declare him dead. And maybe make pacts with fiends to ensure that becomes true, off in those strange outer planes.Now Odysseus is really motivated <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.Please note that while I am straying from/adding elements to the original story, that this is what PCs do. A PC playing Odysseus, knowing about the curse, would have sent runners ahead, used spies, and done any number of other things the supposedly clever Odysseus failed to do in the original story <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />. And a good GM turns that into an opportunity to increase power of story.The above is example of mythic story, painted in high level colors. Anyone else want to try some other mythic stories? Or throw one my way to "interpret"?</blockquote>

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