The nature of High/Low Magic
- Thread starter Terramotus
- Start date
hong said:
Well, as long as this is turning into an "I'm right, you're wrong" kind of thread, I'd just like to point out that Hong's definition of fantasy is not technically correct, while my teacher's was. From an on-line glossary of literary terms (http://www.virtualsalt.com/litterms.htm)
The term fantasy does not imply a conflict of good and evil. It only implies an unreal setting.
Fine, insert "high" before fantasy then. By that definition, something like Dracula or Warhammer 40k is also fantasy, but that's not very helpful in the context of this thread. Star Wars is high fantasy along the lines of LotR, because it incorporates the themes and trappings of that genre: good vs evil, characters as archetypes, the presence of the supernatural via the force, swordfighting duels between the main characters, etc. Not because it takes place in an "unreal setting".Urbannen said:
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Belegbeth
First Post
hong said:
Okay, this is a deliberate misrepresentation of the original point. Yes most players do not care about baking bread, or haggling over a beer. You have deliberately restated the original point in order to support your position.
The original point is that the drama that you find in most well-known fantasy novels (Tolkien, Leiber, Howard, and more recent folks like Gemmel, Martin, etc.) involves GRIPPING stuff like combat with other human or human-like warriors, climbing dangerous walls, sneaking through enemy buildings, trying to stay alive in hostile environments, dealing with difficult political situations, and so forth. (And don't down-play the drama of being pick-pocketed! If the PCs' remaining gold has been pickpocketed after they've journeyed across a horrible desert, or if they find their "special magic ring" suddenly gone after bumping into a street urchin, that can lead to some exciting campaign developments!) Few great fantasy authors include protagonists with earth-changing special abilities and bags full of magic items that enable them to overcome these difficulties without breaking a sweat. (Yes there are exceptions -- I suppose some of Moorcock's stuff is pretty high-powered in terms of magic. But in literature, at least, they are the exceptions.)
Most players who have not memorized all the rules and spells in DnD are likely to find these kinds of "survival" difficulties more understandable as serious problems for their PCs -- i.e. the kinds of situtations that make role-playing exciting for them. They are going to have a harder time finding the problem of countering an enemy's scrying attempts by means of counter-measures, while on guard for teleporting assassins, etc., intuitive. (Of course, once they acquire adequate "game knowledge", such events may seem intuitive and dramatic. Just as, I suppose, Star Trek fans find certain pseudo-technological "problems" in various episodes far more gripping than non-ST fans do.)
The purpose of my original post was to point out this fact. In terms of literature (and, yes, "real life"), "low magic" settings are simply more accessible to most players. Yes there are exceptions. But if a DM has a job (and other time pressures), it may be easier for him to create an exciting campaign by keeping magic "rare and mysterious" -- i.e. more similar in feel to the magic found in good fantasy novels -- than it would be for him to make it commonplace and utilitarian.
And yes, even superheroes feel "emotions" and struggle with "relationships." But is often harder for a mature reader to empathize with Superman's "relationship issues," than it is with those of, say, Aragorn or Samwise.
Aaron2
Explorer
Belegbeth said:
Its impossible to completely emulate written fantasy because in a book, what magic can and can't do depends entirely on the needs of the story. If a spell would eliminate the need for a particular action sequence or challenge then that spell simply doesn't exists and the character's of the story don't complain when that ability is removed from them.
For example, in the first Harry Potter movie, the ckick uses a want to create a fire and distract the bad guy. Even though every one of the school's teachers is sitting right there, none of them have a similar spell to extinguish the fire. Why? because that would defeat the entire point of the scene.
With an RPG, the character have the rules written out before the game begins. The DM doesn't have the luxury of removing spells or abilities just to suit the current challenge. Your only hope is to remove all magic using PCs and give NPC plot-dependent magic power.
Aaron
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
online literary glossary said:
Ugh! That's a rather lame and unhelpful definition of fantasy. It's definitely not a definition of fantasy literature as a genre.
Upon such a definition, many of Isaac Aasimov's science fiction works, and much children's literature would be labelled as "fantasy" even though they don't fit into the fantasy genre. One might also note that it doesn't in the least distinguish between Bullfinch's Mythology, The Wind in the Willows, George MacDonald's _Lillith_, Star Wars, The Fall of the House of Usher, and the latest Conan novel.
Urbannen said:
Belegbeth said:
It's not my fault that I define drama in terms of moral, emotional and social conflict, in addition to the relatively shallow arena of physical conflict. This is an eminently reasonable thing to do, and I'm not even a paid drama critic.
Even if you want to limit things to the purely physical stuff for some reason, play high-level D&D with all its bells and whistles some time. You'll find it's stupidly dangerous, to the point that resurrection is not a luxury, it's a necessity if you want any sort of continuity.
And why on earth do you include the qualifier "human and human-like warriors"? Are you suggesting that the balrog in Moria was a boring fight because it wasn't human? How about the nazgul? Or Smaug? Foul demons and similar otherworldly challenges are part and parcel of fantasy. If you can't handle that, chances are you don't even like fantasy in the first place, and so you fall outside the scope of the discussion.
Finally, there's a heck of a lot more source material to draw on than just low-magic fantasy novels. High-level D&D tends to follow wuxia in many ways. In terms of the campaign and adventure structure, the PCs are usually loners operating outside the bounds of society, they can whack anyone whose kung fu (levels) isn't as strong as theirs, and there's usually a few top-end villains who do present a credible challenge. In more mechanistic terms, everyone flies and teleports, and magic is flashy. Wuxia is legitimate fantasy too, albeit outside the western tradition.
Or if you want to stick to occidental stuff, go back to Greek or Celtic myth. The stunts that people pull there are easily fodder for high-level adventures. There is plenty of precedent for characters who can do wild and wacky things like running along blades of grass, or descending into the underworld, even if a lot of it has been forgotten or mislaid. Perhaps if one can't find precedents for what D&D does in the material one is familiar with, the solution is to look further afield.
And high magic does not obviate the tension inherent in sneaking around enemy territory, hostile environments, difficult political situations, etc. While you'll probably easily handle most people you meet, in any competently designed adventure there'll always be someone whose kung fu is as strong as yours.
In fact, by giving characters more tools, it probably even makes it more likely that they'll end up in these types of situations. There's not much point in going into the Abyss if you're going to get toasted within an hour, or trying to sneak into a castle filled with 1,000 guards if you're not sure you'll get past at least 990 of them.
Cite evidence that these are indeed the kinds of situations that "most players" find exciting. ThaADVANCEnks!
The simplest solution to these issues is not to think about them. Seriously. Whether such things occur is something entirely under the control of the DM, who can decide that, if they would be detrimental to the enjoyment of the game, they don't occur. Again, it's the characters-on-a-stage approach.
If it really does get to you, the next-simplest solution is to get rid of the broken spells. These are well known; the fact that even you can identify them is a sign of that. The game remains high magic; people still fly around, chuck fireballs, wade through armies of mooks and so on.
Just as overthinking Star Trek is silly, so is overthinking fantasy.
They may be more accessible to many players, but that has more to do with the players themselves and what social and cultural expectations they bring to the table, rather than any inherent limitations of high-powered D&D.
The point I'm making is that, _if_ someone is willing to delve into high magic, they can find it just as satisfying, just as exciting and dramatic and tension-filled, as any other sort of game. Saying stuff like it's less dramatic or less tension-filled is just a handwave. You also get more spectacular visuals, and the feeling of doing deeds that would be beyond ordinary mortals. Note that this is a Good Thing as far as most players are concerned. D&D, Vampire, Exalted, RIFTS, Champions -- the most successful RPGs all have a means for PCs to transcend the limits of what normal people can do. As Robin Laws has said, roleplaying is most often a power fantasy, and games usually cater to that, with exceptions (like Call of Cthulhu) being few and far between.
While the convenience factor is certainly something that makes low magic easier to handle, it's also orthogonal to everything that's been considered so far. Not to mention that it's more to do with levels rather than magic as such. Even if you cut back on the funky stuff dramatically, you're still going to run into scaling issues at the top end, as the different linear progressions diverge. It's an issue to do with the design of d20.
Most "mature readers" think Aragorn is a shallow, one-dimensional character living in a shallow, one-dimensional world who kills nonexistent things so he can sit on the throne of a nonexistent country.
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Elder-Basilisk
First Post
The irony of course is that while 1e had no magic shops, there were PCs with enough +1 swords to outfit a small army walking around but they couldn't sell any of those swords to reduce their encumberance because "there are no magic shops." Similarly, there were low level PCs with lots of gold walking around who would have loved to get some of those +1 swords but for some strange reason none of the high level adventurers who had treasure rooms full of useless (to them) magic items would sell these lower level PCs the magic weapons because "there are no magic shops." It was an utterly ridiculous situation.
Aaron2 said:
Bendris Noulg
First Post
Hmmm...
Well, if forced to choose between playing with default magic levels or not playing at all, I'd likely take up fishing.
And I'm allergic to fish.
Honestly, does anyone remember the original spell lists? (Other than Diaglo?) Just because every X number of years they compile every petty little spell from the modules, Dragon Magazines, and other sources, and present them as "standard issue", doesn't mean they're standard issue. You only need enough magic to get past the obsticles/challenges presented by the GM that require it, and it is possible for a GM to run an entire, long-running campaign that doesn't require any at all.
Well, if forced to choose between playing with default magic levels or not playing at all, I'd likely take up fishing.
And I'm allergic to fish.
Honestly, does anyone remember the original spell lists? (Other than Diaglo?) Just because every X number of years they compile every petty little spell from the modules, Dragon Magazines, and other sources, and present them as "standard issue", doesn't mean they're standard issue. You only need enough magic to get past the obsticles/challenges presented by the GM that require it, and it is possible for a GM to run an entire, long-running campaign that doesn't require any at all.
Aaron2
Explorer
Bendris Noulg said:
In my current campaign I'm pretty close to just telling the players that -none- of the spells in the PHB can be assumed to exist. Any spell they find will be custom made by me and may or may not resemble a spell from the list. I want to bring back the "what the heck was that" feeling of the early days.
Aaron
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