What is "grim and gritty" and "low magic" anyway?

[Gothmog]

And if I say pretty please could I get a copy of such a simple and elegant mechanic?

Ok, its late and my brain isn't working like it should. If you'd tell me which of the modifications I suggested you were interested in seeing, I'd be happy to oblige.

 

[d4]

This seems to be a love it or hate it topic.

strangely enough, i'm on both sides of the aisle. i prefer "low magic" campaigns, but i hate "grim & gritty." my preference is for a "low magic, high action" setting: the characters are accomplished and powerful (like cinematic action movie heroes) by dint of their own innate abilities, not because of magic.

if i were to run such a campaign in D&D, i'd have some serious alterations to make. luckily, there's quite a few things from UA that could help.

 

[Snoweel]

Neither style is right or wrong. Whatever the the DM and players enjoy is right.

No.

 

[danzig138]

No.

Explain?

 

[FireLance]

To me, "low-magic" simply means that magic is rare. Some people enjoy low-magic settings for various reasons. I do not. I play D&D to explore what may be possible in a world where magic is real and common. I thus avoid low-magic games on the basis of "what's the point?"

To me, "grim" means that the odds are stacked against the PCs and they are doomed to fail eventually. I do not enjoy such games either, as in my view, they tend to degenerate into an exercise in futility, and I like having a decent chance of succeeding at what I set out to do.

To me, "gritty" means that there is no black and white. Good always has some evil mixed in, but (in a truly grim setting) the reverse may not be true. I enjoy playing idealistic heroes whose faith in the power of good will always be vindicated. Hence, I do not enjoy such games, either.

To sum up, I guess low magic, grim and gritty games look and awful lot like reality, and I don't want that much reality mixed into my fantasy, thank you.

 

[Mieric]

Low magic means that magic is less common, but not necessarily less powerful. No magic item shops, and maybe once every 3-4 adventures a minor magical item shows up (potion, +1 item or equivalent). I have run a low magic game for the last 12 years, and in 3E, my solution to the overly powerful core class casters was to grant all characters an extra feat at every odd level (not every 3), and to make casting classes gain a new level of spell every 3 levels instead of every 2 (much like the adept), but one more spell per day of each level. Its worked well, seems balanced so far, and the high-level magic (5th+) will pretty much always be out of the hands of most characters in the game. Spells of 6th level and higher are ritual spells, and require either lots of time or multiple casters to work. Cursed items or items with side-effects are also more common and interesting to use in such settings.

These are the rules I believe he was talking about. I'd be interested in getting a .txt/.doc copy of these as well.

mieric!s-mail.com <-- please replace the ! with @

 

[I'm A Banana]

Low magic games do tend to be much more character oriented, and IME the players have had to think much more and use sound tactics to overcome odds rather than blowing through it with obscene amounts of magic. Characters rely on their skills and knowledge, not on their nifty magical gizmos.

Dude, it's not the magic or the grim & gritty that defines tactics, character orientation, "munchkiny," or use of skills and knowledge -- it's the DM and the Players. A no-magic one-hit-kill world can skill have powergamers, munchkins, and those who don't care a whit about your precious plot and style and prefer to just roll a d20 and play a character.

THIS is as bad as the other side blaming it on incompetent or limiting DM's. A flavor is just that -- a flavor. It doesn't define a playing style. It is always the DM's and Players working as a unit that define the playing style. Making sweeping generalizations about how people play under a hit point rule and a magic system is a bit mislead.

That said, I'm on both sides. I appreciate low magic or grim & gritty rules, and I think both have their place and can run fun games. I'd like to play in a few here or there. But I'll keep comin' back to the core, because at heart I want to sling around spells and act like a hero. Low magic and grim & gritty don't have much appeal to me as a ruleset, and a bad DM (one constantly harping about munchkins, for one) can ruin it all worse than a bad core DM. I like the feel of the normal magic games, and they are no less morally ambiguous, oriented on stuff, or stratiegic and skillful than anybody's low-magic bloodfest. You don't NEED low magic to be interesting.

The main game I run now isn't low magic or grim & gritty, but the players have about three magic items as a party of 5, and there is no gold. And yet there are no special rules governing creation of magic items, or use of spells. The alignments exist. People have hp. It's normal D&D in nearly every respect, and it's still as skill-focused and character-drive as anything else.

The one detail I've changed is that the PC's, instead of getting magic items, just get magic powers. And that doesn't re-define the balance of the campaign, it just means I can hand out treasure at a more comfortable pace without underpowering the PC's for basic D&D. I don't need to re-assess the entire game system just because I don't like the idea of powers dependant mostly on items. I just change a detail, and the world works fine.

If I want magic to be awe-inspiring, I just put in an epic spell or an incantation. If I want players to feel affraid of one mook with a dagger, I give the mook seven levels of rogue and three levels of assassin.

The main difficulty I have with low magic and grim & gritty is that while they serve a valuable service, they make a mountain out of a molehill more often than not, and turn into a game that is very focused on mechanics because you're learning how to enter a different idiom. And some of their advocates will preach the good word like low magic is the saving grace of gaming and will dispel munchkinism forever, unlike normal high magic rollplaying!

I don't have any problem with the existence of these things, if you like 'em, and you have a right to like 'em. But implying that they're hollistically 'better' isn't accurate at all in my book. I like my HP, AND I can make one mook with a dagger dangerous. I like my magic, AND I can make magic inspiring, and skills useful. I can have magic shops, AND stop people from being walking armaments. I like my alignment, AND I can have moral ambiguity and doubt. WITHOUT destroying the system. That's what I prefer. I know that's not everyone's cup o'tea, and more power to them, but your method doesn't dispel munchkins any better than mine.

 

[Snoweel]

Explain?

Hmm... what to do..?

Either I could explain humour to you (I could even spell it in such a way that you might be able to look it up yourself: H-U-M-O-R) or I could give you the smug satisfaction of defending a ludicrously obvious argument from the undefeatable position of moral highground.

What to do..?

Honestly dude, when somebody feels the need to make an idiotic statement like:

Neither style is right or wrong. Whatever the the DM and players enjoy is right.

I just want to punch my 15" VGA monitor in the face.

Does such inane babble need to be said? As if not everybody's aware of this truism?!?!?

But then I get a response from someone like you, who's just itching for somebody to disagree and give you the opportunity to win something - anything today, and I realise Kormydigar was probably wise to attach a qualifying disclaimer to his post.

DISCLAIMER: POEPLE R FREE 2 PLAY GAMES IN A WAY WHATS TEH MOST FUN.

 

[Aezoc]

Hmm... what to do..?

Either I could explain humour to you (I could even spell it in such a way that you might be able to look it up yourself: H-U-M-O-R) or I could give you the smug satisfaction of defending a ludicrously obvious argument from the undefeatable position of moral highground.

<snip>

Wow, what a waste of forum space. It wasn't the least bit funny, so the humor defense really doesn't hold any water. And while what he said may be a truism, its still worth mentioning since some of the posts in this thread have been fairly negative towards one style of play or the other, although they all remained pretty civil until yours.

 

[Snoweel]

Wow, what a waste of forum space. It wasn't the least bit funny

Actually dude it was.

But you should probably just take my word for it because I'm funnier than you'll ever be.

so the humor defense really doesn't hold any water.

Well I think I just proved, QED-style, that it does. And I expect a full and very public retraction.

And while what he said may be a truism, its still worth mentioning since some of the posts in this thread have been fairly negative towards one style of play or the other

Yes but they were all clearly opinions rather than statements of fact. I was always of the opinion that opinions don't require validation of the alternatives.

Expediency and all that, y'know?

although they all remained pretty civil until yours.

Ahh, civility - the last refuge of the smug coward.

 

[Morrus]

Hmm... what to do..?

Either I could explain humour to you (I could even spell it in such a way that you might be able to look it up yourself: H-U-M-O-R) or I could give you the smug satisfaction of defending a ludicrously obvious argument from the undefeatable position of moral highground.

What to do..?

Honestly dude, when somebody feels the need to make an idiotic statement like:



I just want to punch my 15" VGA monitor in the face.

Does such inane babble need to be said? As if not everybody's aware of this truism?!?!?

But then I get a response from someone like you, who's just itching for somebody to disagree and give you the opportunity to win something - anything today, and I realise Kormydigar was probably wise to attach a qualifying disclaimer to his post.

DISCLAIMER: POEPLE R FREE 2 PLAY GAMES IN A WAY WHATS TEH MOST FUN.

Hmm... what to do..?

Either I could explain the basic rules and conditions under which you have permission to post on this messageboard (I could even repeat it many times in such a way that you might be able to remember it) or I could just ban you.

What to do..?

Honestly dude, when somebody feels the need to make an insulting, inflammatory post like the above...

I just want to punch that banning option as hard as I can.

Do such rules need to be repeated? As if not everybody's aware of how things work here.

But then I see a post from someone like you, who's just itching to insult someone and give you the opportunity to win a permanent holiday from the boards.

In all serious, Snoweel, tone it down. It's 8.30am, I've been up all night working on the site/boards, and the last thing I need is to have to deal with crap like this.

 

[Snoweel]

Just to clarify, it's early Friday evening on this side of the world. I'm a bit tense after a hard day's pouring concrete.

And can I point out that being asked to

Explain?

an obvious joke couldn't be construed as anything but an insult, since for me to treat it as a sign of innocent curiosity would be to show serious disrespect to danzig138's comprehension skillz.

So I figured I'd give him the debate he wanted and try to be funney about it.

Tell me you didn't chuckle.

 

[Morrus]

My response was funnier. But making a joke out of it doesn't change the rules round here.

Anyway, enough of this. There's a discussion going on.

 

[Snoweel]

TO THE DISCUSSION![/melodrama]

 

[RangerWickett]

Aww, and I was all ready to start placing bets on who'd kick whose arse. *whistles innocently*

I want a setting where magic is impressive and mysterious, but I couldn't run an actual 'low magic' setting and enjoy it. I mean, I've run a couple non-Fantasy adventures, and they've either been Star Wars with its Force powers, or they've been set in the modern day with a World War 2 Japanese submarine ghost ship with actual ghosts.

I like magic. But I don't like things like 'suggested character wealth' practically being measured in magic items. I don't like magic being the default for all characters. I don't mind it being there, and being somewhat common, but I don't like it being in the hands of common people.

 

[S'mon]

Low Magic - less magic than normal. 'Normal' around here usually means standard-3e, which is ultra-high-magic compared to most other RPGs. Low magi usually means magic is both rarer & weaker than normal, although it can be common-but-weak, as in Runequest (and arguably Tolkien), or very-rare-but-very-powerful, as in the Elric stories and much swords & sorcery fiction. Of course a DM who tries to create a low-magic setting using standard 3e rules is likely to screw up, either overpowering PC spellcasters (by restricting items but not spellcasting) or annoying players by arbitrarily nerfing the casters at inopportune moments.

Grim & Gritty - usually this means 'disease, pestilence & death' as in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which combines a dreary late-medieval setting with omnipresent supernatural evil. You can have settings that are grim but not gritty, 'high fantasy in a dark world', like Midnight (some people run Midnight as 'gritty' too, but I think that's a mistake). You can have 'gritty' but not particularly grim - Lankhmar, say, or arguably Conan, settings where death comes easily, but the protagonists are still larger-than-life heroes who laugh in the face of it.

 

[Dirigible]

S'mon pretty much sums up my views on the matter.

And to all the people who've said things along the lines of 'grim'n'gritty and/or low-magic means a lazy, player-hating, incompetant GM'... *shakes heads*

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

For me, low magic can either be the way things are described or it can involve actually changing the game system.

Examples:

A low magic world could consist of 99.9% 1st level commoners - the players as 2nd level adventurers are already really special - different flavour, same mechanics. The players have a 'reasonable' number of items for their level - however items are still very rare on a global scale?

Or even removing all items and replacing them with innate and/or non-magical abilities. Pluses/effects stay the same. Description of how you get them changes.

Or it could involve removing all magic items, clerics and mages.


I agree with what's been said - changing the level of magic in a game can have some far reaching effects on the game balance. For example removing all magic items makes monks, clerics, certain monsters and wizards very nasty - If not compensated for - being a barbarian may not be too much fun! DM's can counter this, but it's an awful lot of work for them and, IME, details often get missed.

IMO, altering many of the other core of the core mechanics 'too far' has similar effects.

When it's being drastically altered - I'd rather start with a different system that's closer to what I'm trying to achieve. Whether that's an OGL D20 game or something from another system all together:

For example:
Spaceships, Magic and Firearms = Dragonstar.
Everyone plays a super mage = Ars Magica.
Wild west, horror and magic = Deadlands.
No magic, guns, less spying = D20 Modern.
Etc.

Then start house ruling from this closer point. I've realised games designers and games testers are generally better at designing games than I am, so the less modding I do, the better the game tends to work.

As a fringe benefit, I like having everything gathered in a nice printed books... piles of house rules scrawled on bits of paper (or worse, in my scatty brain!) tends to lead to confused players.


However, if you're having fun then you're doing things right! And it's only rules, after all - plenty more important things than that.


IMO, like others have said, Grim and Gritty has more to do with the tone of the game rather than rules mechanics. YMMV, but I find the 'harder' things are for the characters the more morally ambiguous they get.

 

[hong]

IMO, like others have said, Grim and Gritty has more to do with the tone of the game rather than rules mechanics. YMMV, but I find the 'harder' things are for the characters the more morally ambiguous they get.

I said something similar on rec.games.frp.misc, some time back:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=6fqt0v4j5lanq4v0phi6im0j56fkbu7unk@4ax.com


From: Hong Ooi (hong@zipworld.com.au)
Subject: Re: D20: As Gritty As You Wanna Be
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd, rec.games.frp.misc
Date: 2002-12-29 05:08:52 PST


On Thu, 26 Dec 2002 07:00:03 -0000, jhkim@darkshire.org (John Kim) wrote:

>Rick Rauser <rauser@canoemail.com> wrote:
>>Here's an easy way to make D&D (and any d20 game, for that matter)
>>gritty rather than cinematic. [...] Simply adopt the CoC Massive
>>Damage rule (see CoC d20 rulebook, page 70), which states that if a
>>character receives 10 hp of damage in a single blow, he must make
>>a successful Fortitude save (DC 15) or be killed instantly.
>
> I'm not really sure about this. For example, I've played
>in 1st edition AD&D which had a number of "save or die" threats.
>However, I never felt that they made the game particularly "gritty"
>in the sense that GURPS or Runequest were -- though maybe this is
>just a difference in the meaning of "gritty".

"Gritty" is one of those words that means what you want it to mean. It's a
bit like "munchkin" in that regard.

I like to define a "gritty" campaign as one where the PCs aren't expected
to solve all the problems they face. By problems, I mean not just proximate
threats like the Lich of the Dark Tower 10 miles thataway, but also the
general tone and theme of the game world. A gritty campaign is one where
the DM presents at least one ongoing threat or condition that can't be
addressed by a group of random individuals, whether by force of arms,
diplomacy, intrigue, or any other methods available to them.

Note that this definition doesn't have much to do with the lethality of the
game. You could have a high-level D&D campaign where PCs die all the time
(and high-level D&D _is_ lethal, in 3rd Ed). However, since the PCs are
expected to overcome the challenges they face (destroy the Dark Lord of
Poo-Bah, beat back the invading armies from the Plane of Pink Smurfs, or
whatever), it isn't gritty. Conversely, you could have a character
interaction-heavy campaign revolving around gangs in a large city. Even if
not much combat takes place, the characters know that most of the people
around them are never going to leave the ghetto, are never going to make it
to greater things, etc. (Whether this latter example is really "gritty"
depends on how much the campaign focuses on social issues. You could just
as easily have a non-gritty campaign set in the 'hood, by de-emphasising
the level of poverty and desperation, and concentrating on action instead
of bleakness.)

This definition also doesn't have much to do with the campaign's degree of
connectedness with the real world. A Spycraft campaign a la James Bond is
very much "real world", in the sense of not having much magic or ultra tech
(relatively speaking). However, the characters are likely to be larger than
life, and the challenges they face will be those appropriate to the action
movie genre: ones that can be surmounted over the course of a session, or a
campaign. On the other hand, a campaign taking place in the Warhammer
universe will probably feature lots of fantastic creatures like dark elves,
orks, undead and whatnot. It'll still be gritty, because even if the PCs
kill all the bad guys, there are more where they came from: you can't
defeat Chaos, only slow it down.

Personally, I prefer just going into dungeons, killing monsters and taking
their treasure. Much less complicated.

 

[S'mon]

Interesting, Hong. I think the idea of threats you can't just kill is one that features strongly in grim & gritty settings like WHFRP, 1984, Blake's 7, Cyberpunk 2020 etc. On this definition of 'gritty' (which I think is a very good one BTW) my deity-level AD&D campaign suddenly became 'gritty' when Thrin (UK's deity PC) encountered the Arasaka Corporation as an enemy on Cyperpunk Earth and realised that it didn't matter how many Arasaka assault teams or executives he dispatched, the Corporation itself was effectively unkillable by any means he had available. Gibson's 'Neuromancer' has a great discussion on this AIR. Of course in the real world even megacorporations can go bust, and even the most tyrannical governments can be overthrown.