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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jimmy Dick" data-source="post: 7985778" data-attributes="member: 6994416">I have always liked limiting magic in any campaign I ever ran. As a GM I felt like I had two choices, limit the magic or go full bore into a magic-oriented campaign. Back when I ran AD&D 1/2e I could do that and it worked well enough. When I got back into gaming with Pathfinder 1e, I had to make a lot of adjustments because that edition had a lot of magic in the game. In fact, many times it felt like it had too much magic and relied a lot more on the mechanics. The story really fell to the wayside sometimes, especially in Society play. Don't get me wrong, there were many good Society scenarios and the modules were often really good. It came down to the players more than anything.This is one reason I like the approach of Pathfinder Second Edition. The gating of certain things like spells, items, feats, and powers has generated a well-balanced set of classes. Stuff that would negatively upset the balance of the game has been removed beyond the player's grasp for the most part. The entire approach to the edition is one where if you want this X, you have to give up this Y. You do not get something for nothing. There is always a price to pay for anything you want for your character. It also helps to remember that just because magic works for players one way, it does not have to work the same way for NPCs and monsters.I really like playing Wizards in most editions. But I don't want the wizard character to outshine the entire party. I like the way spells are gated in PF2. My Wizard has something he seeks in every scenario and quest; knowledge. Ultimately, as a Wizard he craves power, but that power is gained through knowledge. Whether it be the making of scrolls or items, the casting of uncommon and even rare spells, he seeks the power that goes with them and that comes from the knowledge that unlocking those things requires. As a GM, the use of descriptive adjectives is very important in roleplaying so as to give the players a visual description that accesses their imaginations. I feel that this is an area that has always been the GM's province. They really set the tone for a session. Sometimes I feel that visual stimuli through video games has come with a double-edged sword. We see the visuals in the game when we play a video game, but we have to "see" the visuals on a table top with our imaginations. I feel a deep sense of gratitude towards a player from Brazil who asked me to go beyond the mechanics of PF1 and put in more descriptive narrative instead of focusing on the mechanics of the encounters. It was just a matter of returning to the basics and thanks to their request I did focus on setting during the sessions. That put the magic back into the games.</blockquote>

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