Quick Tip: Using Shadowdark RPG for Sword & Sorcery gaming

Truth be told, I've never run a Sword & Sorcery campaign, in any game system, without at least 1 PC as a magic-user.

I think that even though the ("purist Conanesque") fiction doesn't have magic-users as protagonists, RPGs are a different medium and it's okay to have PC casters, as long as you remove the "superhero" spells (fireball, fly, etc).

Wizards incinerating enemies does happen in S&S, but for S&S Fireball should probably be limited to a Near-size blast emanating from the Wizard, not Far range.
 

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Wizards incinerating enemies does happen in S&S, but for S&S Fireball should probably be limited to a Near-size blast emanating from the Wizard, not Far range.
I typically allow the "lesser" fire spells such as Burning Hands and Flaming Sphere, but not Fireball as that's where I feel we are leaving Sword & Sorcery and crossing into standard "High Fantasy D&D Superhero" territory.
 

I typically allow the "lesser" fire spells such as Burning Hands and Flaming Sphere, but not Fireball as that's where I feel we are leaving Sword & Sorcery and crossing into standard "High Fantasy D&D Superhero" territory.

It is kinda marginal. I recall a demigod semi-protagonist incinerating swathes of foes in a 1980s S&S novel, The Fortress of Eternity.
 

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