[Poll] As A *Player*, Do You Enjoy Low-Magic/Grim&Gritty Campaigns?

[el-remmen]

Yes, but if now and again there should be encounters where fighting is not an option. . .

And while 20th level characters would make mincemeat of orcs does not mean orcs would not be there - or that these orcs might have some information on something else that does concern them.

"Oh, you just kill all the orcs? Okay. . ." (DM makes note)

Part of the "grittiness" of grim n' gritty that I love is that there are consequences to all actions, some good, some bad, some unforeseen, perhaps some never seen if not followed up. To me that is a good game and good GMing. It is how I run my games and it is how I want games I play in to be run.

As for things like dragons, they shouldn't just be wandering around - I mean, you don't get to live 1000's of years by just doing anything - they know (with their genrally great intelligence) that even they cannot do things with impunity - because there are consequences, or else the world simply makes no sense at all - and while I understand that you can't make a fantasy world make 100% sense, you can still try to make things be internally consistant and make some kind of sense both superficially and to the first few layers of inspection and speculation.

 

[milotha]

Yes, but if now and again there should be encounters where fighting is not an option. . .

And while 20th level characters would make mincemeat of orcs does not mean orcs would not be there - or that these orcs might have some information on something else that does concern them.

"Oh, you just kill all the orcs? Okay. . ." (DM makes note)

Part of the "grittiness" of grim n' gritty that I love is that there are consequences to all actions, some good, some bad, some unforeseen, perhaps some never seen if not followed up. To me that is a good game and good GMing. It is how I run my games and it is how I want games I play in to be run.

As for things like dragons, they shouldn't just be wandering around - I mean, you don't get to live 1000's of years by just doing anything - they know (with their genrally great intelligence) that even they cannot do things with impunity - because there are consequences, or else the world simply makes no sense at all - and while I understand that you can't make a fantasy world make 100% sense, you can still try to make things be internally consistant and make some kind of sense both superficially and to the first few layers of inspection and speculation.

Let me put it more simply. Suppose that you are running a campaign, and for whatever reason, you decide to run a module. Are you going to pick a 20th levelmodule to run against a 1st level party? Are you going to pick a 1st level module to run against a 20th level party. The D&D world scales because the GM scales it. If they didn't they would be a bad GM.

 

[tonym]

I think a lot of the hostility (which tends to generate multiple pages in a thread) has to do with how difficult it is to even define these terms. The definitions aren't settled on so participants argue right past one another.

Good point. I'm one of those folks 'wary' of Low Magic campaigns (for reasons stated previously). Here's my assumptions about Low magic campaigns:

1) No cool or powerful magic-items will ever fall into the PC's hands. That means no flying carpets, belts of giant strength, flaming swords.
2) Low Magic also means no exceptionally useful magic, either: No slippers of spider climbing, potions of flying, teleportation magic.
3) After playing for 3 or 4 months, maybe you have a +1 sword in the party, and maybe a magic ring that doesn't do anything useful.
4) Expect your PC to walk around wounded for days and days, as Healing magic is a luxury carefully portioned out by a grim-loving DM.
5) Your PCs will never see airships, floating cities, or high fantasy stuff--even as relics from a previous age.
6) Where there is Standard Magic, it is in the hands of NPCs and will never become the property of PCs.

A DM would have to be pretty good for me to have fun in a Low Magic world--beyond one short adventure, I mean.

My definition of Low Magic may be more extreme than some of you swell people's definitions. When I think 'Low', I think LOW.

Tony M

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Let me put it more simply. Suppose that you are running a campaign, and for whatever reason, you decide to run a module. Are you going to pick a 20th levelmodule to run against a 1st level party? Are you going to pick a 1st level module to run against a 20th level party. The D&D world scales because the GM scales it. If they didn't they would be a bad GM.

There's a difference between deciding to run a module (which should be fair for the players) and designing the world to actually scale upwards with them. For instance, if I say the Lord of Evil dwells within the Damned Tower, and the 1st Level PCs take off for the Damned Tower, the 1st Level PCs are going to get exactly what they deserve for doing something gawds-awful stupid. I'm not going to scale down the BBEG of the setting just to accomodate a group of idiots (although, if even one of them has any common sense, they should figure it out long before reaching the Damned Tower that they're walking into a place that will kill them without hesitation or remorse and that I, as a GM, have no intentions of being merciful).

Just as with the dragon example earlier; I certainly wouldn't bust out a dragon without warning on a Low Level party, but I might state that the Northern Woods has a dragon living in it. If the PCs go there as a matter of choice, than yes, they most certainly have a chance of running into the dragon, and that means they most likely will become lunch. However, in my view (both as GM and player), they have been warned and can consider themselves lucky if they don't encounter the beast. And as a Player, I have intentionally broken away from a group as they headed into someplace that I knew the GM had indicated was a bad place to go. They died. Horribly, but quickly. And, of course, blamed me for it (like 1 more 4th Level Fighter was going to be any help against a cursed mountain pass haunted by the souls -ghosts- of a thousand warriors).

And I think this is why I don't like the way Raise/Res/TRes works in 3E; It's not that coming back from the dead is easy (for some heroes, it just might happen once or twice, and is in-fact a common enough occurance in myth/literature to be a valid option), it's that it's become incredibly easy not to suffer for mistakes made that were just plain and simply dumb to do in the first place. By making them rarer, the GM is adding a very worthwhile restriction on them: "Works only if Cause of Death wasn't stupidity."

 

[Orius]

Anyone else think it's funny how arbitrary decisions are sneered down on when used to generate a low magic setting but it's perfectly fine to be arbitrary to keep high magic environments in check...

At any rate, they don't have to be domesticated... In a high magic world, confining them to a specific area for easy retrieval is relatively simple to occomplish. Once a few have been gathered and they start having baby gorgons, harvesting the blood is even easier. Get enough gorgons in the herd, and it now becomes possible to draw some blood from many, giving you a steady supply of gorgon's blood without depletion of your source.

I wasn't being arbitrary. I would think that gathering blood from an aggressive creature that can turn people to stone by breathing on them would be a tad difficult no matter how you try to accomplish it. Unless you're automatically assuming that the gorgon herders have petrification defenses, which I wasn't.

Besides, the MM states that gorgons are impossible to domesticate, so there.

The point I was trying to make its that 3e takes most of the difficulty out of magic item creation and such. In 2e, to make magic items, you had to have a higher level than in 3e to begin with, and then you needed to use all sorts of rare and hard-to-find material. Books like the DMG, The Complete Wizard's Handbook, The Book of Artifacts and so on gave some guidelines. Spells and Magic and High Level Campaigns improved upon the system by codifyign the rules somewhat. In any case, most items required characters to hunt down rare materials rather than just scratching off some xps on the character sheet plunking down some gold, and waiting a given time period in the game.

 

[milotha]

There's a difference between deciding to run a module (which should be fair for the players) and designing the world to actually scale upwards with them. For instance, if I say the Lord of Evil dwells within the Damned Tower, and the 1st Level PCs take off for the Damned Tower, the 1st Level PCs are going to get exactly what they deserve for doing something gawds-awful stupid. I'm not going to scale down the BBEG of the setting just to accomodate a group of idiots (although, if even one of them has any common sense, they should figure it out long before reaching the Damned Tower that they're walking into a place that will kill them without hesitation or remorse and that I, as a GM, have no intentions of being merciful).

Just as with the dragon example earlier; I certainly wouldn't bust out a dragon without warning on a Low Level party, but I might state that the Northern Woods has a dragon living in it. If the PCs go there as a matter of choice, than yes, they most certainly have a chance of running into the dragon, and that means they most likely will become lunch. However, in my view (both as GM and player), they have been warned and can consider themselves lucky if they don't encounter the beast. And as a Player, I have intentionally broken away from a group as they headed into someplace that I knew the GM had indicated was a bad place to go. They died. Horribly, but quickly. And, of course, blamed me for it (like 1 more 4th Level Fighter was going to be any help against a cursed mountain pass haunted by the souls -ghosts- of a thousand warriors).

And I think this is why I don't like the way Raise/Res/TRes works in 3E; It's not that coming back from the dead is easy (for some heroes, it just might happen once or twice, and is in-fact a common enough occurance in myth/literature to be a valid option), it's that it's become incredibly easy not to suffer for mistakes made that were just plain and simply dumb to do in the first place. By making them rarer, the GM is adding a very worthwhile restriction on them: "Works only if Cause of Death wasn't stupidity."

Ah, this is exactly what I figured someone would say, and this takes me to several points regarding "low magic and "grim and gritty">

1) Whether its a module or a pre-inserted adventure encounter, the point is the same. You would never force certain death on the players. At first level the BBEG isn't just going to come out and kill the characters when they are travelling down the road on their first adventure. The GM has informed the players in some way that they are outmatched by the BBEG, thus they shouldn't face him. Or as you said "the players get lucky". PC choice or GM selected adventure amount to the same thing. It's scaling the adventure to meet the level of the party.

2) You've indicated that you have entire encounters, NPCs and BBEGs fleshed out. Not an uncommon or bad thing. Some GMs have an entire world fleshed out with all the NPCs, monsters, BBEG etc statted out in advance, all of the cities designed out in advance. Everything planned out in the most minute detail in advance. ANd thus, everthing is set at a fixed level. This makes the world seem more "real" to them. It has been my experience that this is where GMs can get themselves into trouble. What happens when the players reach level X and everything in region Y is well below their levels. Suddenly the PCs, especially the mages, can wreck havoc on the region. If the BBEG isn't really a challenge anymore, the the PCs appear to be godlike and everything is too easy. I have seen more GMs nerf spells and abilities because of problems like this. They want everything fixed, but they don't want the power levels of the PCs to grow beyond the encounter. It's easier to add HP, increase BAB and decrease AC to the BBEG without anyone noticing, and it's harder to suddenly add anti-teleport and scrying defenses to an area. This completely predefined setting puts an artificial cap on the level the campaign can reach and still be coherent and challenging.

3) I've noticed that many of the GMs who are discussing wanting to play a "low magic grim and gritty" setting also stress a high degree of "realism" in their games. Many state that their are inconsistencies and way too oneupmanship associated with high/normal magic and they would rather do with out these problems. That there are too many world shaking consequences that they can't deal with. That's fine. I can completely understand it.

But what I really wonder is: are there two types of players and GMs

A) Those who stress realism, and want all the infinite consequences of all magic worked out and don't want things to change on the fly. If something is more realistic it is more fun, and inconsistencies bother them. - "low magic"
AND
B) Those types of players that have a higher level of suspending their disbelief. As is true when one goes to the movies. You can ignore minor unimportant plot holes and still have a good time. It doesn't matter that there are all these ramifications of spells. Some sort of explanation is fine.- "normal or high magic"

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I wasn't being arbitrary. I would think that gathering blood from an aggressive creature that can turn people to stone by breathing on them would be a tad difficult no matter how you try to accomplish it. Unless you're automatically assuming that the gorgon herders have petrification defenses, which I wasn't.

Those exact defenses aren't required, however. Indeed, bullrings of domination or some such is just an Item Creation Feat away from being "reality" (so to speak), and with the standard NPC demographics, finding someone to pen up a CR8 critter (note: not kill it, just pen it) isn't that difficult.

Besides, the MM states that gorgons are impossible to domesticate, so there.

Hmmm... Got a point there. At the same time, it doesn't have to be domesticated, just penned to a specific area.

The point I was trying to make its that 3e takes most of the difficulty out of magic item creation and such. In 2e, to make magic items, you had to have a higher level than in 3e to begin with, and then you needed to use all sorts of rare and hard-to-find material. Books like the DMG, The Complete Wizard's Handbook, The Book of Artifacts and so on gave some guidelines. Spells and Magic and High Level Campaigns improved upon the system by codifyign the rules somewhat. In any case, most items required characters to hunt down rare materials rather than just scratching off some xps on the character sheet plunking down some gold, and waiting a given time period in the game.

So which is better? I'd wager that most LM/GnG folks prefer the older method, and for several reasons.

1. More Flavorful. Creation of a magic item allowed for non-mechanical quantifiers that involved story/setting elements rather than GP/EXP expenditures.

2. Balance Factor. The GM was free to determine what an item's effect would be on the campaign and determine if obtaining the required components was difficult, easy, or even impossible, based on the needs of the setting and to keep spellcasters in check with everyone else.

3. Plot Hooks. Rather than just paying out cash as assuming access to a library and laboratory, these items needed to be acquired through game play. Finding components often involved searching/questing for it. Books of lore that introduced the methodologies of creating spells and items were easily a part of a treasure hoard. Laboratories and libraries required a location (tower, guild hall, celler, etc.) in which to be placed.

So, if anything, the streamlining of magic item creation in 3E is another example of the less flavorful environment produced by the High Magic rules as written. I have no problem with being able to make items earlier; I have a problem with the lack of control that comes from the "assumptions" (assumed Wizard research between levels that permits the picking of "any" two spells, assumed access to library/laboratory, Sorcerers that don't need either of these to gain their powers, assumed access to rare and unusual ingrediants, etc.). It's why changes are necessary to produce a different gaming environment, especially one that's LM, since just saying the world is Low Magic while leaving all the rules unchanged is simply asking for over-powered PCs to wreak havoc unchecked because the rules let them.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Ah, this is exactly what I figured someone would say, and this takes me to several points regarding "low magic and "grim and gritty">

1) Whether its a module or a pre-inserted adventure encounter, the point is the same. You would never force certain death on the players. At first level the BBEG isn't just going to come out and kill the characters when they are travelling down the road on their first adventure. The GM has informed the players in some way that they are outmatched by the BBEG, thus they shouldn't face him. Or as you said "the players get lucky". PC choice or GM selected adventure amount to the same thing. It's scaling the adventure to meet the level of the party.

The adventure, yes, but not the world, as implied earlier.

2) You've indicated that you have entire encounters, NPCs and BBEGs fleshed out. Not an uncommon or bad thing. Some GMs have an entire world fleshed out with all the NPCs, monsters, BBEG etc statted out in advance, all of the cities designed out in advance. Everything planned out in the most minute detail in advance. ANd thus, everthing is set at a fixed level. This makes the world seem more "real" to them. It has been my experience that this is where GMs can get themselves into trouble. What happens when the players reach level X and everything in region Y is well below their levels. Suddenly the PCs, especially the mages, can wreck havoc on the region. If the BBEG isn't really a challenge anymore, the the PCs appear to be godlike and everything is too easy. I have seen more GMs nerf spells and abilities because of problems like this. They want everything fixed, but they don't want the power levels of the PCs to grow beyond the encounter. It's easier to add HP, increase BAB and decrease AC to the BBEG without anyone noticing, and it's harder to suddenly add anti-teleport and scrying defenses to an area. This completely predefined setting puts an artificial cap on the level the campaign can reach and still be coherent and challenging.

Oh, I agree that over-preperation (especially world-scaled preparation) is generally asking for trouble, and GMs that do it certainly might make mistakes to avoid re-working everything.

However, the opposite also also true: Many GMs know exactly what rules/balance changes they are making and then design the world around the modified rules set. For instance, in the current "flagship" game right now, there are intended to be 3 primary antogonists within the city in which the PCs are currently located. One is going to be political in nature, another demonic, and the final a "false god" (essentially a psionic-leach that uses followers as sources of additional psychic power but requires those followers to believe -falsely- that he is of a divine nature) who will seem to be little more than the leader of a minor (but growing) cult that the PCs have very few dealings with (if any beyond the presence of the rumor mill). While I have the necessary mechanics (I know the races, classes, etc.), I still haven't written up two of them because I don't know where the PCs will be 3 "game months" from now when the urban-based events start to come to a head (that is, I know they'll be in the city because they're awaiting a celestial convergance of three stars and a comet, but I'm still considering the odds of leveling up before this occurs, item creation, tactics and resources (they're forming their own mercenary army, which could be small or large depending on their methodology in gathering would-be-soldiers to them, as they definately have the funding); the third they are about to start interacting with on a political level, and the chances of opting for assassination over debate in council is a very real possibility (LE PCs) and her ability to survive such an attempt needs to be determined now (and if I have to add a level or two for actual face-to-face confrontation later, I can do just that).

Assuming all three have remained "RP-based" antogonists prior to the convergence, it should be a hell of a night when control of the city goes up for grabs.

3) I've noticed that many of the GMs who are discussing wanting to play a "low magic grim and gritty" setting also stress a high degree of "realism" in their games. Many state that their are inconsistencies and way too oneupmanship associated with high/normal magic and they would rather do with out these problems. That there are too many world shaking consequences that they can't deal with. That's fine. I can completely understand it.

I wouldn't say "can't" deal with, as it implies inability (true in some cases, yes, but not all). Assuming you are including the "don't want to" croud (be it for flavor, preference, what ever), than you're close to on mark.

As for realism, I can say that I prefer "realism", but it should also be acknowledged that "reality" can never be accurately simulated via a game (well, give it 4 hundred years, AI, and holodecks, and we might be able to, but I'm obviously not worried about it in my life time). What most of us want is (A) more internal consistancy, (B) more "layers" of realism as opposed to a near-total absense of it, and (C) less comic-book/Xena/He-Man cheesiness (this last being something that the standard rules are more capable of emulating than LotR or The Black Company).

For example, I have little problem with PCs (and a few NPCs) being able to jump out of a 30' window without making a harsh splat even though the fall would kill most other people (should be hurt, yes, but not necessarily dead); What I have a problem with is a PC jumping out of a 100' window, hitting the ground, and getting back up and walking away without a single mark or ache to show for it. That's not heroic, it's just silly.

But what I really wonder is: are there two types of players and GMs

A) Those who stress realism, and want all the infinite consequences of all magic worked out and don't want things to change on the fly. If something is more realistic it is more fun, and inconsistencies bother them. - "low magic"

I'm definately of this camp. While I'm not particularly looking forward to WotC's new setting, I am curious to see it in order to determine if the setting actually tries to keep itself in check or if it's simply a world of contridictions and inconsistancies that are simply excused as being the result of "magic". What I suspect though is, "new world, more cheese".

 

[Henry]

I prefer not to play in a grim/lowmagic campaign, because I have not yet found one that I ever liked for more than a session or two. Some of my players think that I run a "low-magic" campaign, because some of them at 7th level still have AC's in the teens, and a couple of them have +2 weapons, with the majority having a couple of +1 items apiece and several potions or scrolls. The fact is, I prefer a more graduated power-scale, and most of them are only now getting into the levels where they are encountering foes they can beat who possess powerful weapons.

The things is they've grown used to having tons of magic in some campaigns, and a magic scale more in line with, say, 3.5e is unfamiliar to them.

 

[Altalazar]

I voted no preference - but mostly because I can enjoy just about any game. D&D really is a magic system. It is not "high" magic, but it certainly has magic as an important part of the world.

I also agree that many DMs who only do "low" magic do so for reasons that can indicate a bad DM rather than any flavor of the world. The game system, as is, has been massively playtested and balanced - so it is much easier for a DM to run the "normal" medium level of magic of the base D&D system - you can also use modules, etc. without having to adjust much, if at all. So it is easier to run a good game with the resources out there if you use the standard, medium level of magic.

But that isn't necessarily always the case that low magic means a bad or otherwise railroading DM. I've played with low magic in other game systems and I've had fun. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Rune Quest being two of them.

I prefer to play standard D&D as a player - but I am open to trying just about anything.