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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9608058" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I think there's room to argue that very early-edition D&amp;D includes something that isn't quite &quot;high magic heroic fantasy.&quot;That is, while magic exists, a lot of it is inaccessible to players, and getting a wizard to the level where they do have it is rough. Not impossible, but rough. That lowers the magic a bit. I wouldn't call any version of D&amp;D truly &quot;low magic&quot;, except maybe 4e if you ban a lot of stuff. (E.g. PCs can only be Martial characters or specific types of Monk, using the Inherent Bonuses rules, no Ritual Caster or at least sharply limited access, etc.)Heroic is...hard to apply to early-edition D&amp;D in the manner it was intended to be played--but note &quot;intended.&quot; A lot of people wanted to be Aragorn or the like, when the intent was Conan or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or the like, morally-grey mercenaries fighting not for Good but for Civilization, because that's where they could spend their haul from trawling the murder-holes. GP=XP, among other things, strongly encouraged a selfish, mercenary playstyle even for groups that maintained high internal cohesion (which was far from guaranteed; remember that the Cleric was created specifically to take the Fighter-turned-vampire &quot;Sir Fang&quot; down a peg.)Lower levels, which is where most play occurred, were more like weird dungeon gritty fantasy. Higher levels leaned more in the high-magic direction (especially once players had a high-level cleric or MU in their character stable), but I'm not really sure that Gygaxian D&amp;D ever really was &quot;heroic&quot; fantasy in the way that term is usually used. It's much more like classical Greek heroism, which was about being mighty and uncowed, not so much about being benevolent; &quot;virtue&quot; in its ancient sense, literally &quot;manhood/manliness&quot; (from virtus, an adjective derived from the noun vir, &quot;man&quot;), not its modern, Christianized sense of unimpeachable righteousness and moral rectitude.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9608058, member: 6790260"] I think there's room to argue that very early-edition D&D includes something that isn't quite "high magic heroic fantasy." That is, while magic exists, a lot of it is inaccessible to players, and getting a wizard to the level where they [I]do[/I] have it is rough. Not impossible, but rough. That lowers the magic a bit. I wouldn't call [I]any[/I] version of D&D truly "low magic", except [I]maybe[/I] 4e if you ban a lot of stuff. (E.g. PCs can only be Martial characters or specific types of Monk, using the Inherent Bonuses rules, no Ritual Caster or at least sharply limited access, etc.) Heroic is...hard to apply to early-edition D&D in the manner it was intended to be played--but note "intended." A lot of people wanted to be Aragorn or the like, when the intent was Conan or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or the like, morally-grey mercenaries fighting not for Good but for Civilization, because that's where they could spend their haul from trawling the murder-holes. GP=XP, among other things, strongly encouraged a selfish, mercenary playstyle even for groups that maintained high internal cohesion (which was [I]far[/I] from guaranteed; remember that the Cleric was created specifically to take the Fighter-turned-vampire "Sir Fang" down a peg.) Lower levels, which is where most play occurred, were more like weird dungeon gritty fantasy. Higher levels leaned more in the high-magic direction (especially once players had a high-level cleric or MU in their character stable), but I'm not really sure that [I]Gygaxian[/I] D&D ever really was "heroic" fantasy in the way that term is usually used. It's much more like classical Greek heroism, which was about being mighty and uncowed, not so much about being benevolent; "virtue" in its ancient sense, literally "manhood/manliness" (from [I]virtus[/I], an adjective derived from the noun [I]vir[/I], "man"), not its modern, Christianized sense of unimpeachable righteousness and moral rectitude. [/QUOTE]

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