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General Tabletop Discussion
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The Difficulties Of Running Low Magic Campaigns
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7737395" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I think that's the key issue. Magic is pervasive in Middle Earth, but the idea of magic as it is encapsulated in D&D spellcasting is largely actually superstition in Middle Earth. Magic as it exists in D&D spellcasting largely does not exist, rather, it is how ignorant people imagine magic works. This creates a really big problem when you are trying to kludge classes like Wizard or Cleric into Middle Earth. </p><p></p><p>It's important to note that most of the most 'magical' seeming beings in Middle Earth either don't understand the word magic or think the word is meaningless and misapplied. In fact, in order to discuss magic in middle earth with any degree of accuracy, we'd probably need to develop a specialized language that dealt with the different categories of things that the ignorant called 'magic'.</p><p></p><p>Magic in middle earth is never really explained but as best as we can tell it depends on a combination of authority (what your nature gives you the right to do), skill (how you've developed or trained your nature), and lore. Lore seems to fall into two categories, either advanced technology or the knowledge of the true names of things which is probably the name they were given in the song of the Ainur that shaped Middle Earth. Knowledge of those true names seems to be the closest to what we'd recognize in D&D as a spell, and thus Gandalf's assertion that he used to know all the 'spells of opening' combined with the fact the when he performs these 'spells' what he's really doing is just basically saying "open up" in different languages.</p><p></p><p>It's important to note that not only can people have authority, but they can apparently invest authority into objects. Ultimately 'The One Ring' is just a bunch of Sauron's authority invested into an object, combined with the fact that it also has authority over all the authority the other races invested in the other rings of power (which was Sauron's scam in the first place). Gandalf can do fire magic, largely because he has a ring that the elves invested their authority over fine in. And the elves have authority over fire because there is a sense where they are 'in' the world in the way that humans are not.</p><p></p><p>The reverse problem with introducing 'spellcasting classes' into Middle Earth is that you are silo'ing off magic as the exclusive domain of some, when in fact most magic doesn't work that way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7737395, member: 4937"] I think that's the key issue. Magic is pervasive in Middle Earth, but the idea of magic as it is encapsulated in D&D spellcasting is largely actually superstition in Middle Earth. Magic as it exists in D&D spellcasting largely does not exist, rather, it is how ignorant people imagine magic works. This creates a really big problem when you are trying to kludge classes like Wizard or Cleric into Middle Earth. It's important to note that most of the most 'magical' seeming beings in Middle Earth either don't understand the word magic or think the word is meaningless and misapplied. In fact, in order to discuss magic in middle earth with any degree of accuracy, we'd probably need to develop a specialized language that dealt with the different categories of things that the ignorant called 'magic'. Magic in middle earth is never really explained but as best as we can tell it depends on a combination of authority (what your nature gives you the right to do), skill (how you've developed or trained your nature), and lore. Lore seems to fall into two categories, either advanced technology or the knowledge of the true names of things which is probably the name they were given in the song of the Ainur that shaped Middle Earth. Knowledge of those true names seems to be the closest to what we'd recognize in D&D as a spell, and thus Gandalf's assertion that he used to know all the 'spells of opening' combined with the fact the when he performs these 'spells' what he's really doing is just basically saying "open up" in different languages. It's important to note that not only can people have authority, but they can apparently invest authority into objects. Ultimately 'The One Ring' is just a bunch of Sauron's authority invested into an object, combined with the fact that it also has authority over all the authority the other races invested in the other rings of power (which was Sauron's scam in the first place). Gandalf can do fire magic, largely because he has a ring that the elves invested their authority over fine in. And the elves have authority over fire because there is a sense where they are 'in' the world in the way that humans are not. The reverse problem with introducing 'spellcasting classes' into Middle Earth is that you are silo'ing off magic as the exclusive domain of some, when in fact most magic doesn't work that way. [/QUOTE]
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