Great, now I've got that song stuck in my head.
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Where has all the magic gone?
- Thread starter Doug McCrae
- Start date
TheAuldGrump
First Post
Hmmm, maybe it is just that you never had any magic. Goodness know I still find some in the game, some thirty four years later. 
The players may know that they are dealing with a sea hag and some merrows, or maybe they don't.
The magic moment when the panic sets in as a character is pulled under water is still the same - the players yelling at the paladin to forget his damned armor and get stuck in already.
The barbarian raging as he pulls the sorcerer out of a merrow's claws before he drowns.
The paladin finally getting into the damned water and smiting the hag!
I find that the magic happens more with the kids than it does with their parents, but there are still shining moments, even with the grownups, when the players are totally involved in the game.
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* And just because....
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iHqVyeluPw"]YouTube- The Muppet Show - We Must Believe in Magic[/ame]
The players may know that they are dealing with a sea hag and some merrows, or maybe they don't.
The magic moment when the panic sets in as a character is pulled under water is still the same - the players yelling at the paladin to forget his damned armor and get stuck in already.
The barbarian raging as he pulls the sorcerer out of a merrow's claws before he drowns.
The paladin finally getting into the damned water and smiting the hag!
I find that the magic happens more with the kids than it does with their parents, but there are still shining moments, even with the grownups, when the players are totally involved in the game.
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* And just because....
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iHqVyeluPw"]YouTube- The Muppet Show - We Must Believe in Magic[/ame]
Last edited:
TheAuldGrump
First Post
I certainly find some with the younger players, even when things are going horribly wrong.
Is it sad that I actually prefer the version that she sang for the Muppet Show?
Right up there with The Impossible Dream for the feel I want from gaming.
The Auld Grump, I was once at a grocer when Man of La Mancha spontaneously broke out... there were about twenty of us singing the darned thing by the end.
pukunui
Legend
I wonder if perhaps you're equating "magic" with "mystery"? If the players know all the monsters' and magic items' stats, that takes a lot of the mystery out of the game (although it doesn't remove it entirely, as you can still have purely story-driven mystery), but I wouldn't say it takes away from the magic of the game.
That being said, I do like to keep things fresh from time to time. We recently switched GMs for our Star Wars Saga Edition group, with me taking over from another guy. I decided to swap out the lowly default stormtroopers for ever so slightly tougher Fett clone stormtroopers (my campaign is set three years after the end of the Clone Wars, so all the stormtroopers are still Fett clones). The guy who was GM before me would say things like, "Don't worry, stormtroopers only have 10 hit points" or "These guys are easy to hit, they're stormtroopers" ... and I'd grin and say, "Not, these stormtroopers ...".
That being said, I do like to keep things fresh from time to time. We recently switched GMs for our Star Wars Saga Edition group, with me taking over from another guy. I decided to swap out the lowly default stormtroopers for ever so slightly tougher Fett clone stormtroopers (my campaign is set three years after the end of the Clone Wars, so all the stormtroopers are still Fett clones). The guy who was GM before me would say things like, "Don't worry, stormtroopers only have 10 hit points" or "These guys are easy to hit, they're stormtroopers" ... and I'd grin and say, "Not, these stormtroopers ...".
Psychotic Jim
First Post
There is a very good point here about a potential "arms race" between the players and dm that can make prepping a fun game more difficult (familiarity can breed complacency or boredom).
However, there are a few potential complications here about player knowledge ruining the "magic" of the game.
A) It's assuming that all monsters/spellcasters/baddies/etc of the same race or class are all alike, both in stats and behavior. Monsters can be individuals just as pcs, and can think and act differently. If you as a dm know how your players think, then sometimes using the same monsters/spell/situations in unusual and unpredictable ways can throw off your players. For example, in editions prior to D&D, the Detect Alignment spell was a known mystery killer. If the spell failed upon a target of their suspicion, it's likely that their suspicions are right on. But if you have the villain cast undetectable alignment on a hapless bystander, then you've subverted the detect alignment and potentially created a red herring.
B) Player knowledge (or rather, presumptions) can be used against them. Throw in an encounter with some “standard” zombies and skeletons to get them comfortable and complacent. Then, in later encounters, sprinkle in some undead with some more... creative abilities. One zombie explodes letting out spores or poison. Another is a host to swarms of vermin that spills out when the undead’s cut open. A skeleton's missed bone arrows spawn more skeletons. Sometimes these minor twists and surprises can throw you more off guard than creating brand new stuff out of whole cloth- because it combines the familiar with the unfamiliar and hits you when you're off guard.
However, there are a few potential complications here about player knowledge ruining the "magic" of the game.
A) It's assuming that all monsters/spellcasters/baddies/etc of the same race or class are all alike, both in stats and behavior. Monsters can be individuals just as pcs, and can think and act differently. If you as a dm know how your players think, then sometimes using the same monsters/spell/situations in unusual and unpredictable ways can throw off your players. For example, in editions prior to D&D, the Detect Alignment spell was a known mystery killer. If the spell failed upon a target of their suspicion, it's likely that their suspicions are right on. But if you have the villain cast undetectable alignment on a hapless bystander, then you've subverted the detect alignment and potentially created a red herring.
B) Player knowledge (or rather, presumptions) can be used against them. Throw in an encounter with some “standard” zombies and skeletons to get them comfortable and complacent. Then, in later encounters, sprinkle in some undead with some more... creative abilities. One zombie explodes letting out spores or poison. Another is a host to swarms of vermin that spills out when the undead’s cut open. A skeleton's missed bone arrows spawn more skeletons. Sometimes these minor twists and surprises can throw you more off guard than creating brand new stuff out of whole cloth- because it combines the familiar with the unfamiliar and hits you when you're off guard.
I'd wager that "nasty DM tricks" started in the very second session of D&D ever played, because some player who had been there for session 1 opened his mouth and said, "Don't worry -- last time the blue pools were healing!"
Mephistopheles
First Post
For me the magic is there whenever my players come across something mysterious in the game and they wonder, "Now why would that be?". While the question may be nothing magical, when I see the players trying to make sense of something on behalf of their characters in the context of the world those characters exist in I feel like I've succeeded as a GM.
The same goes when I'm playing and a GM inspires a similar reaction from me.
The same goes when I'm playing and a GM inspires a similar reaction from me.
What's the claim here? That Tim Kask was just nuts when he observed, in 1976, that "D & D lost some of its flavor, and began to become predictable"?
"If your referee has made changes in the rules and/or tables," then you will have to discover what they are before you can record that knowledge for posterity. And why should the referee be changing up things in the first place?
The predictability, the loss of flavor "came about as a result of the proliferation of rule sets".
It's funny how people can seemingly take something to have just the opposite of its intended meaning. It's even funnier when they effectively ask those of us who experienced the phenomenon in question "are you going to believe me, or your own eyes?"
"If your referee has made changes in the rules and/or tables," then you will have to discover what they are before you can record that knowledge for posterity. And why should the referee be changing up things in the first place?
The predictability, the loss of flavor "came about as a result of the proliferation of rule sets".
It's funny how people can seemingly take something to have just the opposite of its intended meaning. It's even funnier when they effectively ask those of us who experienced the phenomenon in question "are you going to believe me, or your own eyes?"
The thing is not to throw over all consistency in favor of chaos. It is to provide an order that players can infer from experience in play.
Reading up on some subjects may also be permitted, perhaps reflecting the access of even novice adventurers to sources of lore. However,
"The new concept pioneered within these pages" to which Kask referred in the foreword to Eldritch Wizardry, which "should go a long way towards putting back in some of the mystery, uncertainty and danger that make D & D the unparalleled challenge it was meant to be", was the uncertainty of the powers of the treasures therein.
"The abilities of all artifacts and relics must be determined by trial and error, by the players", even if said players have read the entries in the book.
That material, along with all else concerning magic items, was in Advanced D&D reserved for the Dungeon Masters Guide.
Later TSR, and WotC, put primacy on what (as Kask put it) "was great for us as a company," although "it was tough on the DM."
Reading up on some subjects may also be permitted, perhaps reflecting the access of even novice adventurers to sources of lore. However,
Monster Manual said:
"The new concept pioneered within these pages" to which Kask referred in the foreword to Eldritch Wizardry, which "should go a long way towards putting back in some of the mystery, uncertainty and danger that make D & D the unparalleled challenge it was meant to be", was the uncertainty of the powers of the treasures therein.
"The abilities of all artifacts and relics must be determined by trial and error, by the players", even if said players have read the entries in the book.
That material, along with all else concerning magic items, was in Advanced D&D reserved for the Dungeon Masters Guide.
The DMG Preface said:
Later TSR, and WotC, put primacy on what (as Kask put it) "was great for us as a company," although "it was tough on the DM."
