The nature of High/Low Magic

[Belegbeth]

Piffle. My Britannia 3E campaign features plenty of high-flying action, teleporting mages and fireballs everywhere, and yet I have no trouble conceiving of it as mythic fantasy in the purest sense. Campaign tone is what you make of it.

My apologies... I forgot that your Britannia 3E campaign trumps the vast majority of existing fantasy literature. I shan't make that mistake again, your most august, center-of-the-universe!

Wow. Is it so hard for people to get outside of their own "special" campaigns, and think about how MOST people understand fantasy? :\

 

[Raven Crowking]

Just another quick note related to bringing back the dead: IMC, the first two characters who have died have already "played out" their afterlives. Ie, they met the Judge of the Dead, and found out where they were going.

Not only do the dead have a say as to whether or not they can be returned to the living, but the gods have the final word. One went to the lowest Heaven, the other went to gray Lymbo, the highest Hell.

(In my cosmology, there are no planes based on the law-chaos axis, just good and evil and Faerie).

 

[fuindordm]

Belegbeth makes a good point about the distinction between weak magic and
rare magic.

I think a rare magic campaign will always fall into the same trap as a regular
D&D campaign, however, because magic for the PCs isn't rare. The PCs will
have access to powerful spells and a wide array of powers, making it very easy
for them to overcome obstacles that are traditionally used as plot hooks. The
DMG has some good advice on this subject, suggesting that you create adventures
*requiring* the PCs advances powers, rather than nerfing them to force things
down to a more familiar milieu. The King's assassin was an extraplanar
creature with links to an earthly secret society, and the PCs need to use several
powerful spells just to find this out.

A weak magic campaign, on the other hand, makes it much easier to create mundane challenges (survival in the wilderness, for example, can become a major challenge if
magic can't create food and water out of thin air). The setting is more familiar, the
stakes easier to empathize with. This is attractive, but it can get dull at higher levels because the abilities of your character don't change as dramatically.

It's a tough choice, but there's a third option: Limited Magic. The main reason that D&D has so much trouble simulating our favorite fantasy worlds is that their authors, high or low magic, generally placed limits on what magic can and can't do! Maybe wizards needed extensive time and bizzare components to make any spell at all work. Maybe the effect was limited by the magician's personal energy. Maybe magic couldn't create any effects that were blatantly unmagical.

The problem with D&D is that there's a spell for any occasion, and 99% of them have no real cost to the caster. 1st edition at least had those aging rules for powerful spells that severely limited your ability to get them from NPC's! What's worse, wizards and clerics can invent new spells at whim. If magic can do anything, what's the challenge? It would have been great if the PH had a couple of pages explaining what magic *is*, what it's good at doing, and what it has trouble accomplishing. As it is, it has no limits. But then, of course, it wouldn't be "generic fantasy".

So for those of you having trouble getting high-magic campaigns with enough drama, try designing a campaign with some specific rules on how magic works. Place some restrictions on it. Chain it down under the cultural bias of specific regions in your world. Go through the spell list and ruthlessly cull the offending spells. Restrict development of new spells the same way. Then you can make magic into a powerful tool, but not one that's right for every occasion. You can allow players to get 9th-level spells, but you don't need to give them Wish.

Personally, I get a real kick out of the low, low-magic levels. I find that players are more ingeneous when they have very limited options, and I like the sense of caution. But I also like to see my character growing and developing in ways that aren't strictly mundane, acquiring funky powers or undergoing strange transformations. Maybe even getting to play with a powerful artifact for a session or two before the plot tears it out of my sweaty little hands. C'mon, gimme the best of both worlds!

--Ben

 

[hong]

Piffle. People are people. Tautologies are tautologies. Rhetoric is rhetoric. And fantasy literature appeals to people outside of the DnD circle because the tension and drama that they describe are accessible to them. Hence most fantasy literature keeps magic rare. Hence the original poster is correct.

Not, of course, that the original poster referred to "people outside the D&D circle".

Not, of course, that availability of magic has any necessary relationship to tension and drama. Unless these are new meanings of "tension" and "drama" that I wasn't previously aware of, as might have been mentioned already.

Not, of course, that "rare magic" has any necessary relationship to the level of power that exceptional characters, such as PCs, might wield.

 

[hong]

My apologies... I forgot that your Britannia 3E campaign trumps the vast majority of existing fantasy literature.

Hint. One counterexample is sufficient to falsify a universal statement.

I shan't make that mistake again, your most august, center-of-the-universe!

Thank you. Now bend over.

Wow. Is it so hard for people to get outside of their own "special" campaigns, and think about how MOST people understand fantasy? :\

You know, my personal army of clones isn't quite big enough to count as "MOST people" just yet, but clearly yours is different.

 

[Belegbeth]

Not, of course, that the original poster referred to "people outside the D&D circle".

Not, of course, that availability of magic has any necessary relationship to tension and drama. Unless these are new meanings of "tension" and "drama" that I wasn't previously aware of, as might have been mentioned already.

Not, of course, that "rare magic" has any necessary relationship to the level of power that exceptional characters, such as PCs, might wield.

The original poster (what was her/his name again...???) made the rather simple point that most PLAYERS can identify with certain kinds of dramatic issues (finding food, guarding against pick-pockets, negotiating politics, etc.) more readily than other kinds of dramatic issues (how to better coordinate one's ring of haste in order to anticipate teleporting shadow-dancer assassins in the future). Consequently, it is easier for MOST players to "get into" the kinds of conflicts that are more likely to be prevalent in MOST "rare magic" campaigns than the kinds of conflicts found in campaigns where magic is both common and powerful.

My point was that this is the reason why most fantasy literature keeps magic relatively rare. (Namely, in order to keep the drama and tension accessible to readers who do not have the time or inclination to immerse themselves into a "common magic" world-view.)

Please note the essential caveat here: these are GENERALIZATIONS. (Hence the use of modifiers like "most," "often," etc.).

IIRC the original poster did not rule out the possibility -- and I EXPLICITLY did not -- that people might find exciting drama-filled (and tension-filled) adventures in a "common magic" and "high power magic" campaign. (Some people find Star Trek filled with drama and tension...)

Furthermore, I think there is nothing wrong with "magic-as-technology" campaigns. Essentially you have a "fantasy flavoured" Deep Space Nine or Star Wars. That is fine, but it is not what is found in most fantasy literature.

Your objection appears to be that these GENERALIZATIONS do not apply to you. Well, lucky you! They are GENERALIZATIONS. These generalizations also explain in part why MOST (not your Britainnia, to be sure!) fantasy worlds described in fantasy literature keep magic rare.

And they also explain why people who enjoy fantasy literature are often frustrated by the "standard" DnD approach to magic.

By the way -- I do not understand your last point. I thought it was quite clear in my original post that even in a "rare magic" world exceptional individuals could weild great magical power.

 

[Belegbeth]

Hint. One counterexample is sufficient to falsify a universal statement.

You know, my personal army of clones isn't quite big enough to count as "MOST people" just yet, but clearly yours is different.

If you actually read my post, Hong, I should think it would be clear that I was NOT making universal statements.

Furthermore, I merely pointed out that MOST fantasy literature keeps magic "rare and mysterious."

Man, I had no idea my post would upset you so much... :\

 

[Belegbeth]

So for those of you having trouble getting high-magic campaigns with enough drama, try designing a campaign with some specific rules on how magic works. Place some restrictions on it. Chain it down under the cultural bias of specific regions in your world. Go through the spell list and ruthlessly cull the offending spells. Restrict development of new spells the same way. Then you can make magic into a powerful tool, but not one that's right for every occasion. You can allow players to get 9th-level spells, but you don't need to give them Wish.

This is a great line of thought, and it is the best way to realize a "rare magic" feel in DnD (IMO). That is, what you're offering is not really an alternative to rare magic, but a way to IMPLEMENT it in a campaign.

 

[Belegbeth]

I am also in the camp of "rare magic", for several reasons:

1. I am a lazy DM.
2. I am greedy DM.
3. I am a cinematic DM. .

Yup -- that about sums it up (though I would replace "cinematic" with "fantasy literature fan")!

 

[hong]

The original poster (what was her/his name again...???) made the rather simple point that most PLAYERS can identify with certain kinds of dramatic issues (finding food, guarding against pick-pockets, negotiating politics, etc.) more readily than other kinds of dramatic issues (how to better coordinate one's ring of haste in order to anticipate teleporting shadow-dancer assassins in the future).

What you call "drama", I call "minutiae". This sort of stuff is folded into the background in just about every campaign I'm aware of, no matter what level it's at. No D&D player I'm aware of is that interested in the details of baking bread, keeping stuff safe from pickpockets, haggling over a 2 cp beer, or whatnot.

Consequently, it is easier for MOST players to "get into" the kinds of conflicts that are more likely to be prevalent in MOST "rare magic" campaigns than the kinds of conflicts found in campaigns where magic is both common and powerful.

No matter how powerful you are, you still have relationships to deal with. There are a number of levels on which this can function. At the personal level, super powers aren't automatically going to make someone love you, or stop hating you. They won't make an evil assassin repent their ways, or turn a paladin to the dark side. There are ways to _compel_ such things, but that isn't the same thing.

At the heroic level, super powers aren't automatically going to win you the devotion of your subjects or stop the orcish horde from despoiling your lands. At the epic level, they won't overthrow the tyrant god-emperor who has the world under his thumb. They won't stop the ceaseless conflict of good and evil, whether you're acting through angels and demons, or humans. If you want to do something like that, you're still going to have to put in the effort.

_This_ is drama, in the meaningful sense of the word. Baking bread is not the realm of most fantasy literature, and neither should it be the realm of D&D.

My point was that this is the reason why most fantasy literature keeps magic relatively rare. (Namely, in order to keep the drama and tension accessible to readers who do not have the time or inclination to immerse themselves into a "common magic" world-view.)

And just because people can fly, throw fireballs around, or carve up hundreds of mooks does not render the tapestry of their emotions and motivations any less fascinating. The flavour of the game may not be what you're after, and it may not be what you call "fantasy", but going from that to saying that it's inaccessible or lacks drama/tension/whatnot is drawing a long bow. The most important thing is that the people telling the story are competent and committed: people (DMs and players both) who don't know what they're doing, or don't put in the effort, can render any campaign sterile.

IIRC the original poster did not rule out the possibility -- and I EXPLICITLY did not -- that people might find exciting drama-filled (and tension-filled) adventures in a "common magic" and "high power magic" campaign. (Some people find Star Trek filled with drama and tension...)

Furthermore, I think there is nothing wrong with "magic-as-technology" campaigns. Essentially you have a "fantasy flavoured" Deep Space Nine or Star Wars. That is fine, but it is not what is found in most fantasy literature.

Star Wars _is_ fantasy (eps 4-6 at least). And it's fantasy not because it makes no reference to earth, like some rather misinformed English teachers told their students, but because it touches on fundamental themes of the conflict between good and evil. On that level, it's not that different to stuff like LotR, even if people use lightsabers instead of bastard swords.