D&D General What do do when a setting doesn't have magic?

[DEFCON 1]

How many are going to be in the game? There is nothing wrong with playing with a barbarian, two fighters and a pair of rogues. What else do you need?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

How many are going to be in the game? There is nothing wrong with playing with a barbarian, two fighters and a pair of rogues. What else do you need?

High end tavern wenches/gigolos.

 

[DEFCON 1]

High end tavern wenches/gigolos.

That's a Rogue subclass if I ever heard one! Write it up, @WayOfTheFourElements! Get on it!

 

[billd91]

That's a Rogue subclass if I ever heard one! Write it up, @WayOfTheFourElements! Get on it!

Rogue subclass, pfft. One of my players in a PF campaign did it with levels in ranger and barbarian. Granted, neither of those classes were really directly involved other than to make him one exotic halfling. The cosplaying did add to his cachet, though.
You may think I'm joking... but I'm really not.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Rogue subclass, pfft. One of my players in a PF campaign did it with levels in ranger and barbarian. Granted, neither of those classes were really directly involved other than to make him one exotic halfling. The cosplaying did add to his cachet, though.
You may think I'm joking... but I'm really not.

Yeah, but I dunno if I want to play a gigolo without having Expertise where it counts.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, but I dunno if I want to play a gigolo without having Expertise where it counts.

Cuddling afterwards? No doubt. That's the part of the service that gets the tips...

 

[jmartkdr2]

Short short answer: add more non-magic content.

Classes have definitely been covered (only 5 subclasses in the PHB) - you don't need as many as the base game but you need more.

Then you have to think about monsters and treasure: both of these lists tend to favor magic stuff, so you'll want more options there. More special items that are just well-made or otherwise cool without needing magic. More high-level enemies to fight without supernatural boosts that break your version of the no-magic rule, things like that. These things aren't hard to make, but it's a lot more prep work than a usual game.

Then you need players who also think it's a fun idea, and you're ready to go!

 

[wingsandsword]

Right offhand, I think you play the classes that don't have magic in them. That's because TSR in the 1990's published a series of "Historical Reference" books that were about playing D&D in various time periods, from Bronze-Age antiquity until circa 1650.

They included three options for magic level: a fantasy-history where D&D classes worked as usual in a magical version of the past and the setting was just a bit of historic flavor on a normal D&D game, a low-magic game where magic was rare and special and spellcasters and magic items were unique. . .and a "Historic" setting where there was absolutely no PC magic and what little there was were very, very rare NPC's and even "routine" magic items were of artifact-scale rarity.

So, you can't say it's never been done before as an official D&D setting or option, since it was an option presented for historic settings.

Admittedly it was a bit of a stretch, and the historic games that I ran used the middle option for low magic instead of no-magic, but it has been done before.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I'd play a game more suited to the setting than D&D!

Adventures in Middle Earth for 5E does low magic quite well, but it's not completely no magic,

Yeah, it's worthwhile to investigate other games when they stray too far from D&D's assumptions. D&D is a good game, but it's not a universal RPG. Even GURPS isn't really a universal RPG.

If we acknowledge that rules and mechanics can reinforce and contribute to the verisimilitude of a setting or campaign, then it's reasonable to seek out the best set of rules and mechanics for the type of campaign we're running.

 

[Wasteland Knight]

Lets say you find a setting you want to set your next DnD campaign in, but it's a setting with no magic. A good half the classes use magic, so so how do your address this? Do you just add magic, just not include wizards? Don't worry too much about the answer. It's a discussion not a actual problem to solve.

You can run most any flavor of D&D sans magic. It's going to change around the dynamics of the game. Anyone running such a game needs to carefully consider which monsters and abilities are used. Healing will be hugely reduced, so the game would most likely need to have most of the "resource depletion" encounters removed, and focus on a smaller number of more focused, storyline important encounters. Probably need to change around advancement as a result.

Because there won't be any "magic items", treasure will become far less important. This will also mess with various "CR" systems for balancing encounters.

I think it can be done, but to be a successful game it's going to take some thinking on the part of the GM.

Personally, for such a game I'd skip any flavor of D&D and opt for something like Mythras.