Why Not Magic?

[doctorbadwolf]

I didn't ever even see the other thread (I still haven't); the only reason I knew about it was you referenced it, and rangers.

That makes your posts in this thread even stranger and more out of line!

I literally made a post in which i referenced a thing from my own game, and you tried to scold me for telling people what to think about dnd rangers.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The problem, I suspect, is you're applying that specific meaning to ranger, when other people who want a non-magic ranger aren't; to them its just a concept about a wilderness-wise light fighter/scout. It certainly doesn't automatically evoke anything supernatural to me.

I'm re-quoting this to remind you how this started. I literally hadn't said anything about DnD Rangers in the post you replied to, the thread isn't at all about how people picture the DnD Ranger, and you're replying as if the discussion was about rangers using or not using magic.

Your reply literally does not make any sense in any context other than the thread you are now saying you've never seen. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the thread you're posting it in.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Now if you want to act like everyone, or even a majority of people will ignore what they feel because its not entirely congruent with the setting, well, carry on; maybe the kind of players you've hit are better about that than the average run. But don't be surprised if you hit people who don't. And no adjustment of the setting, per se, will change that; its a less extreme version of the people who play some version of the same character no matter where the game is set or even what genre, and those aren't exactly rare, either.

This also makes me doubt whether you've read much of the thread before posting. I have explicitly said several times that the point of the question is to figure out if it's needed/worthwhile/more interesting or not to include in-world reasons for characters to eschew magic in a world where magic isn't evil or Faustian or corrupting or life-draining or whatever, it's just a part of nature. What might motivate a person to do that, in the absence of the Conan or Wheel of Time reasons?

If you see that as leading to "this guy thinks that people will ignore their own biases while playing a character" then...you and I are coming from such different ideas of how one thing follows from another that I'm not sure we can meaningfully discuss anything.

If we have simply talked past eachother, and you didn't realize that was where I was coming from, then I'm happy to start over.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

For me, it honestly depends on the nature of the magic in a given setting. In D&D (and most D&D-derived settings) there's little to no consequence or downside to using magic so, sure, I think most people would use it, given the opportunity. But you get into settings like the Old World (WFRP), Melnibone (Stormbringer), Hyborian Age Earth (Conan RPGs), etc and, suddenly, magic is a wild and dangerous thing that not only could screw you pretty bad if you practice it, but it's usually linked to the forces of chaos or evil. In these settings, it makes a lot of sense for heroes to eschew its practice.

Sure. And the first part is why I prefer every class to have magical options, even if the concept of the class isn't "inherently" magical, like the fighter and rogue, and the rest is why I've tried to get conversations going in the past about making the Paladin, Bard, and even Cleric, not spellcasters as a variant option.

I've seen really wild takes where only the wizard ends up with spells, as such, or at least the only one with a big spell list and the spellcasting feature, while others might have a class feature that lets them cast a specific spell a few times or whatever as a shortcut to their concept, but most of their iconic spells would become class features instead. I think there would be merit to exploring that idea, even if I don't think I'd play a game using it.

What I think might be useful in my own game, and in DnD games in worlds like Eberron, is to figure out some benefit to eschewing spellcasting that is actually worthwhile to pursue.

A lot of that comes down to countering magic, tbh. Anything else I can think of end up making magic have downsides, instead.

So like, if a fully mundane warrior can interrupt spells more easily than someone whocan also cast spells, that's a potentially fun benefit to being fully mundane, and in dnd that can mean "no spells from class or feats, excepting racial feats" so that forest gnomes can be anti-magi as well. Stuff like monk abilities that aren't spells, barbarian "magic", etc, wouldn't count as non-mundane for those purposes, because they come from within and don't interact with the weave necessarily.

In my own game with magic skills in a modern world with hidden magic, that could simply mean you can't have ranks in a magic skill that don't come from your ancestry if you want to have bonuses to countering magic. Perhaps I could add a skill to either the Physical Skills or Interaction Skills groupings for shutting down and resisting magic, though that would make it the only skill you have to meet prerequisites to take a rank in.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm re-quoting this to remind you how this started. I literally hadn't said anything about DnD Rangers in the post you replied to, the thread isn't at all about how people picture the DnD Ranger, and you're replying as if the discussion was about rangers using or not using magic.

Your reply literally does not make any sense in any context other than the thread you are now saying you've never seen. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the thread you're posting it in.

It was a reference to your very first post, and my reading from context.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It was a reference to your very first post, and my reading from context.

How? I just reread my OP, and....seriously how does your reply to a much later post I made with no indication that you were replying to the OP and not that specific post remotely relate to what I talked about in the OP?

 

[Thomas Shey]

This also makes me doubt whether you've read much of the thread before posting. I have explicitly said several times that the point of the question is to figure out if it's needed/worthwhile/more interesting or not to include in-world reasons for characters to eschew magic in a world where magic isn't evil or Faustian or corrupting or life-draining or whatever, it's just a part of nature. What might motivate a person to do that, in the absence of the Conan or Wheel of Time reasons?

If you see that as leading to "this guy thinks that people will ignore their own biases while playing a character" then...you and I are coming from such different ideas of how one thing follows from another that I'm not sure we can meaningfully discuss anything.

If we have simply talked past eachother, and you didn't realize that was where I was coming from, then I'm happy to start over.

I'll freely admit I'd not read the middle of the thread, but by reading this, the question you're actually asking (what's needed to make people decide to not take magic) is the opposite of the one I was reading (why would people not take magic when there's no reason obvious in the setting not to). At the least, I think I can reframe what I was talking about in a more useful way in that context.

I suspect what you need to do is to decide whether you're more interested in the question of what Doyalist (player based) or Watsonian (character based) reasons you want there. While they're not entirely disentangles, I suspect the Doyalist ones are going to be stronger on the whole (because they'll still likely matter to players who are very focused on character level design decisions, whereas the Watsonian ones are unlikely to matter strongly to those who make them primarily on how the character will play).

(Though its still not irrelevant for me to note some players will simply decide not to take magic for reasons that may or may not be easily related to any reason on either level, simply because they have personal issues relating to magic in games in either direction that will trump anything else).

An example of a Watsonian reason that might not impact some players at all is that magic is known or reputed to be a danger to your immortal soul--but in a game without resurrection, if that only matters after death some players will justify taking it anyway if its useful, because it has no practical impact on the play cycle, unless there's strong enough social impact from that fact that its effectively a vague mechanical penalty.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How? I just reread my OP, and....seriously how does your reply to a much later post I made with no indication that you were replying to the OP and not that specific post remotely relate to what I talked about in the OP?

Because it was a note that some people's internal image of certain archetypes simply doesn't include magic no matter what the setting seems to say about it. Remember, this was in the context of my trying to explain why some people wouldn't take magic even if there was no mechanical reason or even in-game social reason not to do so.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That makes your posts in this thread even stranger and more out of line!

I literally made a post in which i referenced a thing from my own game, and you tried to scold me for telling people what to think about dnd rangers.

And just a note: that wasn't a scold (at least it wasn't intended as such); it was intended as an explanation, and a note it was true even if it seemed foreign to you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What I think might be useful in my own game, and in DnD games in worlds like Eberron, is to figure out some benefit to eschewing spellcasting that is actually worthwhile to pursue.

Its going to be a hard row to hoe because so many incarnations of D&D have magic that's so strong. In a non-classed system you can sometimes sort-of make the trade off worthwhile by making magic require a lot of buy in, but that's not an easy thing to do in a strongly class based system.

A lot of that comes down to countering magic, tbh. Anything else I can think of end up making magic have downsides, instead.

So like, if a fully mundane warrior can interrupt spells more easily than someone whocan also cast spells, that's a potentially fun benefit to being fully mundane, and in dnd that can mean "no spells from class or feats, excepting racial feats" so that forest gnomes can be anti-magi as well. Stuff like monk abilities that aren't spells, barbarian "magic", etc, wouldn't count as non-mundane for those purposes, because they come from within and don't interact with the weave necessarily.

Well, a straightforward one would be to make resistance to magic in general easier for non-magical entities, but there's a lot of potential ripple effects there that make that tricky to get right.