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Message: <blockquote data-quote="milotha" data-source="post: 1425069" data-attributes="member: 17122">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"</blockquote>

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