Terramotus
First Post
From lurking around these boards, I've witnessed a vocal group (Minority? Not sure.) of folks who prefer low magic games. And, after reflecting on my 2 year high magic rollicking Forgotten Realms game which is now drawing to a close, I think I may be permanently beginning to side with the low magic group.
I see the points of both sides. On one side, high magic, high power is just plain fun. It's neat to watch a character gain power until he can level mountains. It's neat to level those mountains. That was the one of the chief aims of my current game - to run a swashbuckling, high adventure game where the heroes got more powerful and wielded strong magics. That, and to really explore the results on a society of all this magic being available, at least to the wealthy and powerful.
But now, as my heroes have reached the point where death isn't that much of a problem (though it's still a big deal to the characters - I've got good players), and magical item acquisition has basically gotten down to picking what you want out of the book and buying it from your good buddies the War Wizards of Cormyr, I've really noticed something about my game - it seems to lack a bit of challenge.
But I don't think it has much to do with how challenging the encounters are, or how good their chances of success are. I've killed characters, and they've failed tasks, and though the campaign has never been a "Killer Dungeon" style of game, I haven't just been throwing out baddies for them to mow down.
I think the problem is a lack of challenge inherent in the setting. What I mean by this is the difficulty of feeding, clothing, and healing yourself. The problems you have just getting by. Not that that sort of thing should necessarily be the forefront of the game (though tastes vary), but the players KNOW that their characters don't have to worry about it. They know that they won't die permanently unless someone really has it in for them - they're powerful and have friends. They know they won't have serious difficulty prepping for the next mission. In short, except for the whole risking pain and dismemberment thing, life is pretty good for them.
The key to drama is conflict, and lots of it. And in a lot of ways, the ability to cast powerful magics eliminates a great deal of the drama that we can easily relate to. The character might worry about invisible enemies teleporting into his bedchamber with dozens of buffs on them, the possibility that his magical gear is making him soft or throwing off his reactions in odd ways, or how much normal joes put him on a pedestal. And you can explore these aspects in a game, but it's more difficult. We don't instinctively grasp it. A lot of it is based on the rules system of the game you're using and then how much your character really knows about it. Try parsing that before roleplaying a character's reaction.
I could try enforcing this stuff, basically making a high magic game "grim n' gritty", but the reality is that my players, despite being gaming geeks all, don't know every remove nuance of the rules, and this stuff would appear to come out of freakin nowhere. They don't know how they should magically secure their bedrooms, even if their characters do, but they understand avoiding pickpockets. It's tough to grasp being kind of wonky with your fighting style because you're integrating those new boots of speed and ring of improved blur into your combat technique, but they can understand being a bit off because you're tired, hungry and dirty.
In short, I think that, when taken seriously, it both restricts the levels of conflict available (or at least that which the players will immediately grasp IS conflict) for the general setting, and brings a really bizzarre level of sophistication. Both of these actually end up limiting your choices as a DM, in some ways just as much as the raw rules make it tougher to run a mystery game.
For me, my next game will be a simplified, highly challenging, gritty game of d20 Modern. How do the rest of you handle this sort of thing? Oh, and sorry about the novel.
I see the points of both sides. On one side, high magic, high power is just plain fun. It's neat to watch a character gain power until he can level mountains. It's neat to level those mountains. That was the one of the chief aims of my current game - to run a swashbuckling, high adventure game where the heroes got more powerful and wielded strong magics. That, and to really explore the results on a society of all this magic being available, at least to the wealthy and powerful.
But now, as my heroes have reached the point where death isn't that much of a problem (though it's still a big deal to the characters - I've got good players), and magical item acquisition has basically gotten down to picking what you want out of the book and buying it from your good buddies the War Wizards of Cormyr, I've really noticed something about my game - it seems to lack a bit of challenge.
But I don't think it has much to do with how challenging the encounters are, or how good their chances of success are. I've killed characters, and they've failed tasks, and though the campaign has never been a "Killer Dungeon" style of game, I haven't just been throwing out baddies for them to mow down.
I think the problem is a lack of challenge inherent in the setting. What I mean by this is the difficulty of feeding, clothing, and healing yourself. The problems you have just getting by. Not that that sort of thing should necessarily be the forefront of the game (though tastes vary), but the players KNOW that their characters don't have to worry about it. They know that they won't die permanently unless someone really has it in for them - they're powerful and have friends. They know they won't have serious difficulty prepping for the next mission. In short, except for the whole risking pain and dismemberment thing, life is pretty good for them.
The key to drama is conflict, and lots of it. And in a lot of ways, the ability to cast powerful magics eliminates a great deal of the drama that we can easily relate to. The character might worry about invisible enemies teleporting into his bedchamber with dozens of buffs on them, the possibility that his magical gear is making him soft or throwing off his reactions in odd ways, or how much normal joes put him on a pedestal. And you can explore these aspects in a game, but it's more difficult. We don't instinctively grasp it. A lot of it is based on the rules system of the game you're using and then how much your character really knows about it. Try parsing that before roleplaying a character's reaction.
I could try enforcing this stuff, basically making a high magic game "grim n' gritty", but the reality is that my players, despite being gaming geeks all, don't know every remove nuance of the rules, and this stuff would appear to come out of freakin nowhere. They don't know how they should magically secure their bedrooms, even if their characters do, but they understand avoiding pickpockets. It's tough to grasp being kind of wonky with your fighting style because you're integrating those new boots of speed and ring of improved blur into your combat technique, but they can understand being a bit off because you're tired, hungry and dirty.
In short, I think that, when taken seriously, it both restricts the levels of conflict available (or at least that which the players will immediately grasp IS conflict) for the general setting, and brings a really bizzarre level of sophistication. Both of these actually end up limiting your choices as a DM, in some ways just as much as the raw rules make it tougher to run a mystery game.
For me, my next game will be a simplified, highly challenging, gritty game of d20 Modern. How do the rest of you handle this sort of thing? Oh, and sorry about the novel.
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