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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nagol" data-source="post: 6152227" data-attributes="member: 23935">The first example that springs to mind comes from an Ars Magica campaign I ran.  We had grown tired of the troupe style of play and wanted to move back to a single character per player.  I adjusted the game by having each player create a Companion character, added a virtue allowing the purchase of magical arts, and halved the damage output of all forms of magic.  In that edition of Ars Magica,  Companions could have up to 10 virtue points.  A Virtue is a character customisation tool that covers the equivalent of Feats/class features in D&D and were only granted during character creation though specific Virtues can be awarded during play.  Casting minimal magic (one form out of 10 and one technique out of 5) costs 3.  Buying the entire list of magical arts cost 12 so was beyond any character even if no further Virtues were desired -- and there were many desirable virtues.  This change allowed the narrative space for magic to remain open to the players, but limited any individual character.The damage reduction shifted magic in combat away from direct damage towards defense, inquiry, and buffs.  It increased the focus on the mundane in combat while leaving magic assault a credible secondary threat.The  upshot was a game where the magic felt more like Runequest in that most characters had a little magic of a type that emphasized their strengths.A second example comes from a Fantasy Hero campaign.  Magic was defined in a way where it was prone to disruption from specific non-magical elemental forces and hard to affect with other magicks.  Simple magicks were vulnerable to one element, more powerful stuff to two.  Need to break through a sidhe's glamer?  Try a cold iron.  Need to kill a demon?  Give him a bellyful of silver or fire or both.  But don't try to best it with magical fire -- it'll cackle as it rends you limb from limb.Here the narrative space was defined in such a way that mundane combat was effective against all opponents, but magical combat effectively had a very limited impact against other magical opponents.  All characters had access to mundane penetration of in-place magical effects but spell-casters didn't necessarily want to expose themselves to those features and restrict their own capabilities.</blockquote>

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