The nature of High/Low Magic

[kigmatzomat]

From lurking around these boards, I've witnessed a vocal group (Minority? Not sure.) of folks who prefer low magic games. ....
I see the points of both sides. On one side, high magic, high power is just plain fun. ....
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.

I've got my own weird magic distribution. Basically, the availability of magic is inversely proportional to its power. A 2nd level spell is twice as hard to find as a 1st, etc. This means anything bigger than a hamlet tends to have a cleric or adept able to set broken bones but maybe not cure diseases so plagues are still a big deal. Mages can turn the tide of battles but the ones who can do it are finite and can't win wars. Castles are still effective most of the time and are worth the expense, etc, etc.

Regardless, once you hit a certain point your opponents have crapload of power too, but power isn't always enough. The actions of my players have pretty directly caused a "plague" of undead leading to massive problems. Sure, the players have little to fear from the bulk of them but the occassional corpse gatherer or other high HD creatures keep them on edge, especially since many undead can't be raised or ressurected.

The tension isn't so much to "oh crap, we're going to get pounded" as "oh crap, our friend Bob might get turned into a ghoul!" Can the players fix their screwup and safeguard their friends and allies? How well do they deal with the fact they are being treated as heroes for warning the world of the oncoming problems while simultaneously being the guilty parties who caused it? Does anyone catch them at it? Does the stress of survival possibly turn an ally into someone willing to sell them out?

My players are in the creme de la creme portion of the game world; they are in the high elite category where the high level nobility and sizeable city-states would seek them out based on reputation or *for* their reputation. They do occassionally worry about supplies (get your pack animals eaten by purple worms in the desert and have to decide how quickly you'll heal vs. the sheer number of create food spells required for the seven person party plus the menagerie of animal companions and mounts) and its a good stress since it reminds them they're still mortal.

High level games require a bit more thinking but if you've played your way up there should be a plethora of plots hooks that have spent time leveling up and turning into plot harpoons. Sometimes plot harpoons get to converge and either team up or just take advantage of each other. Tension ensues.

Drama, though, is based on how much people care. If your players don't care about the characters or the characters' friends you can't have drama. If you haven't involved the characters in the world at low levels, you'll never have drama at the higher ones.

 

[Geoffrey]

If I DMed a 3.0 or 3.5 D&D campaign, I'd replace D&D's magic system with the magic system in d20 Call of Cthulhu. I think the latter magic system pretty closely approximates the feel of the Howard/Clark/Derleth fantasy stories.

 

[Belegbeth]

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.

You obviously (and probably deliberately) misunderstood what I said. In any case, the definition of "drama" was never at stake here.

And why on earth do you include the qualifier "human and human-like warriors"?

Brain phart on my part. I was tired when I wrote that, but what I was thinking was that when MOST of the opponents that PCs face are humans and humanoids (orcs, etc.), when they actually DO face a powerful creature like a dragon or balrog, that encounter is all the more exciting and dramatic. In contrast, if PCs normally bring down a demon before breakfast, such powerful creatures cease to be remarkable and novel. Uniqueness and strangeness are important ingredients for fantasy drama IMO. And yes, it is not impossible to have unique and strange encounters in a high-magic campaign. But is is harder.

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.
...

Cite evidence that these are indeed the kinds of situations that "most players" find exciting. ThaADVANCEnks!

Except for the last bit, I don't see how anything you said here contradicts the points I have made. You seem to have constructed a straw-man here for the purposes of burning it down. I never claimed that it was impossible to create challenging and exciting adventures for characters in a high-magic setting. I merely claimed that is was more difficult, and less similar to the way in which magic is used in most fantasy novels. Consequently, establishing "dramatic tension" is more difficult in high-magic settings. Not impossible -- I never claimed that -- but merely difficult, especially if people's assumptions about fantasy resemble those found in most fantasy novels.

As for the need for "evidence", the claim was speculative (never claimed otherwise). Again, it was an inference based on the not implausible conjecture that most players' knowledge of fantasy will be drawn from fantasy novels (in which magic is sometimes powerful, but generally quite rare). And consequently the kinds of challenges that players are likely to find intuitive and exciting are ones that do not rely on extensive knowledge and use of the DnD magic system.

You yourself appear to recognize this when you state:
"They [challenges] 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."

Right, and the social and cultural expectations are likely to be those drawn from fantasy literature, and their understanding of Western European society, myths and religion, etc. Again, there may be many exceptions to this generalization. But DnD clearly has a Western European cultural basis (with a few odd exceptions, like the monk), and has always been influenced by certain kinds of fantasy literature (especially Tolkien, Leiber, Vance, and Howard). Other games might have different cultural and literary bases, and some people might modify DnD in order to fit other cultures. Fine. But that doesn't undermine the plausibility of my conjecture concerning "most players."

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.

In general I agree with this, and don't see how it challenges the points I made. My only disagreement would be that in order to maintain some level verisimilitude in the game world (which, yes, enhances the enjoyment of the game for many players), explanations for why castles, diseases, couriers, etc. exist despite the presence of high-powered magic can be helpful. Having magic common and powerful for the PCs (and relevant NPCs), while not affecting the wider society, can strain even the best players' suspension of disbelief.

Keeping magic rare enables a DM to maintain something like a "traditional" medieval society in his world, while justifying the exceptional abilities of characters and relevant NPCs.

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. ....

Never claimed it was impossible. (Note that stating "x is more difficult than y" is not the same as stating "x is impossible.") Again, you seem to make a point of constructing a straw-man in order to burn it down.

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.

Touche!

In summary, my main point was simple. My preference for "rare magic" campaigns has to do with my fondness for fantasy literature -- namely, the kinds of challenges, adventures, and worlds that can be found in decent fantasy novels. That is the kind of "feel" I aim for in my games, and the kind of drama and tension that my players enjoy. Campaigns in which magic is common and high-powered simply do not feel like those kinds of stories. Instead, such games tend to feel more like sci-fi games in which magic replaces technology. (Note that some DnD players are perfectly happy with this approach. And I never said that there was anything "wrong" with it!) Maybe some people like yourself, Hong, can realize a great "fantasy" (and not "sci-fi") campaign in a setting where magic is high-powered and common. I never denied this. Maybe some people are not aiming to realize the kind of fantasy adventure found in Tolkien, Leiber, or Martin. Good for them! All I claimed was that such games would tend not to resemble the kind of fantasy novels I like (and that many other people who play DnD like as well).

 

[Raven Crowking]

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.

Or unreal characters. Or unreal action.

One would not claim that Lord Dunsany's stories were not fantasies because they took place on the earth, would one? Or Charles deLint's. Or any of a number of authors, including myself, who have set stories in real places such as New Orleans, California, and Toronto.

Most people who study fantasy as a genre would, I feel certain, argue that themes and forms of conflict are important to fantasy, though not a portion of the definition thereof. Peter Pan is a fantasy, but its conflict is more between childhood and adulthood than actual good and evil.

Raven Crowking

 

[Raven Crowking]

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

While I am glad that Harry Potter is getting kids to read again, I'd hardly use either movies or books as a good example of a magical system. A lot of novels (including LotR) have much better, and far more internally consistent, magical systems in place.

IMHO, Harry Potter (and that lousy Dungeons & Dragons movie) come from taking a game like D&D and using an analog to that magic system without consideration of the consequences. Was Harry Potter influenced by earlier editions of D&D? Look at the "dungeon" of trap rooms in the first novel. Some of the traps seem awfully familiar to me....

It is quite possible to have the rules of a setting written out, without those rules allowing a "quick fix" (magical or mundane) for what the GM-to-be considers the basic conflicts of that setting. Examples: Call of Cthulhu, The Medieval Player's Handbook, Midnight. Also, the core d20 System, if you have no problem with the Player's Handbook as written.

Raven Crowking

 

[LostSoul]

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.

There are still a few things you could do to make life suck for high-level characters. You can take away their magic items, spellbooks, and their connection to the divine. You can make the setting more and more hostile as the PCs advance in power - at fifth level, they are more or less nobodies in the eyes of the guys who hold the real power. Once they start to break into higher levels, the lich-king of Doom might sit up and take notice. You can set things up so that once the PCs have access to certain spells, that's when they really need them. For example, once they gain access to interdimensional resting places, they should use these places like they used the inn back when they were 1st level. The typical roadside inn, however, is now bloody dangerous.

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.

Yeah. There's a lot to the rule set that an experienced DM or Player could use to really mess with a novice. I know now that you really should ward yourself from Divinations in general and Scrying in particular, but back in the early days of 3e, I didn't give it much thought.

Anyways. As my game crept up in level I decided to wait for the Players to make the first move. They were the first to use area of effect spells, the Fly & Improved Invisibility combo, and save-or-die spells. Sooner or later (if we keep playing, that is), I'm sure they'll spring the Scry-Buff-Teleport routine. That's okay. I hold back on those tactics until the Players have used them, and then it's open season.

I used to think about D&D too much and my brain melted. So now I think you have to deal with the setting, alter the rules to fit the tone you want, and play whatever half-breed mishmash of rules that you end up with.

If it matters to anyone, I see D&D at higher levels as a Superhero game, instead of your typical fantasy stuff.

 

[philreed]

2. Spells like scrying and teleport obviate many of the more classic adventure setups, like journeying cross-country or sleuthing for clues, while resurrection cheapens death.

Though it is a simple matter for the DM to proclaim that -- for example -- all divination spells are 2 levels higher than stated in the books; printed 8th and 9th level divination spells are not available in his campaign.

It's a little more work, but certainly doable, for a DM to also go through the spell lists and modify the level of each available spell. Or remove spells completely. The online SRD at the WotC site makes this easier and allows the DM to create a spellbook specific to his game.

Another way to strip D&D of some of the high-magic feel is to eliminate all item creation feats or, better yet, make the cost of creating magic items more than just XP. For example:

The use of any spells used in the creation of a magic item are lost to the item's creator forever. Be it that the use of those spells in the item's creation permanently erased the wizard's knowledge of that spell or that a part of the wizard's actual soul/essence is now bound to the item is a decision the DM must make.

Every plus of a magic weapon or armor, when that item is created, permanently reduces the creator's Constitution attribute by one point.

These are just a couple of quick ideas. I suspect if I put time into seriously thinking about it, or if any DM did the same, it would be an easy matter to come up with dozens of other possibilities.

 

[Ibram]

One of the best systems that I have come across in simulating a "mysterious/rare" setting is the Conan d20.

 

[fuindordm]

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

Heh. I really like that idea.

--Ben

 

[mmadsen]

If I DMed a 3.0 or 3.5 D&D campaign, I'd replace D&D's magic system with the magic system in d20 Call of Cthulhu. I think the latter magic system pretty closely approximates the feel of the Howard/Clark/Derleth fantasy stories.

You could certainly play a d20 swords-and-sorcery game with just Aristocrats, Barbarians, Commoners, Experts, Fighters, and Rogues for classes and using the Call of Cthulhu magic system. I'm not sure how much else you could borrow from D&D though. Without healing, turning, "artillery" spells, etc., the game changes quite drastically -- and not just in flavor.