why the attraction to "low magic"?

[mmadsen]

While these caster have spells they can use frequently, they don't have a very big impact, other than being able to heal wounds in the case of the Cleric, Bard, and Druid.

I think it's the frequency with which they can cast that creates the monumental impact. If preparing a spell meant scribing a scroll or brewing a potion (i.e., a large time and money investment), then magic would have a much, much lower impact on the world at large -- even if individual spells were just as powerful.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

It would take a fantastically skilled DM to run such a game, to truly consider the logical impact on the world of all of the spells possible.

And I'm not that DM.

But by that same token, when I've got Mind Flayers, Yuan-Ti, Red Dragons and other such Evil Geniuses, I don't want to have to out-think a bunch of people with masters degrees, MIT diplomas and pregnant wives. Because either they're going to be completely on top of the game and utterly foil me in four completely different and bizarre ways and I'll be shocked and disappointed with myself or they're going to be worried about their wives and jobs and whatever and I'll smash them rather more soundly than planned and they'll be miserable.

Less-than-SRD magic and limited suppliments is how I try to keep this game in the realm of "fun hobby" instead of purely a "strategic competition".

So what it comes down to is that I'd rather be looking at my wife than my D&D books.

Cheers,
::Kaze

 

[der_kluge]

You guys are forgetting the one spell that would potentially alter a world more than any other - augury. A cleric with augury could potentially bog down a town into complete chaos. Insight from the gods?! "God, should this man marry this woman?" "God, should I eat corn flakes for breakfast, or Lucky Charms?" "God, does this shirt go with these pants?" If average people have access to Augury, nothing would get done without consulting the divine creator first. And any cleric should be more than willing to provide divine insight to his flock if they seek it.


But enough about that. Extrapolate this out to high level, and huge cities with high level wizards. The DMG even mentions that a large city with a high level wizard has access to wish. Yes, it costs him dearly to cast, but a city of sufficient size could easily afford the payment, and imagine what that could do to the landscape of a city? "Wizard, we need crops that never need seeding", "wizard, we need wells that never run dry", "wizard, we need to put an end to this bubonic plague". Even if a wish is only cast once per year, cities that have been around for hundreds of years would still be enjoying the fruits of some wizard's labor to the current day, and properly worded wishes could very easily alter the nature of the society forever. People wouldn't have to farm anymore, and food would always be plentiful, and water would always be clean and pure.

Crap, imagine the effects ONE decanter of endless water could do to a town. One is all anyone needs.

I think a lot of people liked Eberron because the world was constructed with some of these things in mind - i.e., what happens to a world that has magic in it, and what is the end result of that?

The problem is, and this is why a lot of folks stick with low-magic/rare-magic is that once you extrapolate, and I mean REALLY extrapolate the effects of magic on the world, you end up with a SCI-FI setting. Or at least something like steampunk. Some people don't want that.


I was thinking on the way home about high magic versus low magic. If you play D&D exactly as written, you end up with a very epic, high magic kind of game. At 20th level, your fighter with his +5 whatever, and the sorcerer, with more spells per day than he could ever possibly cast, along with their other sufficiently powerful friends, cut a path through the outer planes, killing outsiders and whatever else. Don't get me wrong, this is great fun, and for those that enjoy this, awesome.

The thing that struck me was how much D&D was geared to this. Which struck me as odd, since LoTR was such a heavy influence on Gygax in the beginning, yet LoTR could easily be classified as low magic, or at the very least low level. But D&D's roots weren't in fantasy literature, but rather wargaming, and strategy gaming. This was the origin of the game. If you ever read any of the Gygax articles in Dragon, it seems as if every game he ever ran with the original players was some quest to go find more treasure. "Robilar wanted to explore the 6th level of the dungeon to find more treasure." That wasn't a role-playing game, it was treasure-finding game! Was it fun? I'm sure it was, since it's still around today. Has it changed, not a whole lot. The emphasis is still very magic/treasure-centric. A chart in the DMG lists average treasure gp value by level. All kinds of rules exist around magic items, and leveling up, and XP, and slaying bigger and bigger monsters. It's core to the game, and don't get me wrong, I've done it for years and years, and am doing it in my own current game. It works.

But I think people are looking for something more simplistic. Something grittier, and leaner. It strikes me as somewhat a shame that the core rules do low magic so poorly. I mean, I can play a low magic individual at low level, but I can only do that so long. I mean, one could just throw away all rule books, make up generic characters, and sit around and role-play every weekend set in some generic fantasy world. Let's face it - you don't need *any* rule book for that. So, to actually play a true role-playing game doesn't actually require any books, or any dice at all. Oh, I suppose once you start interacting with the world you need to know things like how strong, or fast you are, but that's semantics.

For me, low-magic is about getting into a more realistic frame of mind. But, it's all about context, I suppose. For me, that means a medieval setting in a traditional fantasy sense. People aren't dying of the plague, and throwing filth in the streets like they did in reality, but something at least close to that. In this world, starting off at 1st level with the starting gold listed in the PHB is just wacky. Take a village of 200 people, and to have a 1st level fighter start off with something like 120 gold is just ridiculous. "For my first action, I shall purchase this quaint village". As John Stossel might say, "Give me a break!"

/babble over

 

[der_kluge]

And I'm not that DM.

I don't want to have to out-think a bunch of people with masters degrees, MIT diplomas and pregnant wives.

Amen, brother.

In my group I have:
a PhD in psychology
a Masters in Electrical Engineering
a Masters in BioChemistry
A PhD in Paleobotany (prehistoric plants)

No, I'm not joking.

No way can I ever possibly be smarter than these folks.

 

[mmadsen]

The thing that struck me was how much D&D was geared to this. Which struck me as odd, since LoTR was such a heavy influence on Gygax in the beginning, yet LoTR could easily be classified as low magic, or at the very least low level.

Not to go off on a tangent, by Gygax has explicitly stated that he never liked The Lord of the Rings (although he did like The Hobbit fine), and that he only included elements from it because he wanted to sell D&D to the legions of Tolkien fans out there.

What's so odd is how adding PC races from Tolkien totally Tolkien-ized the game.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well would people agree that it takes a "better" DM to run a low-magic campaign? Or at least to run run well. It seems to me that a low-magic campaign (however you make it low-magic) requires more "finesse" on the DM's part, including a solid understanding of CR's and balance issues. You need to know the rules in order to bend them into low-magic.

My guess is that people think "bad DM's" play normal/high-magic campaigns is because most low-magic campaigns are run by more experienced ones. Also, if you are what someone would consider a "bad DM", then you are probably just as interested in powergaming as that players are. This is just my opinion of course.

I absolutely do not agree that low magic = better DM. You don't need to know the rules to bend them into low-magic, as several "heap big DM's," as one poster put it, have shown...low-magic doesn't mean more finesse; if anything, it can be used as a ham-fisted way of enforcing a particular weakness on the party. Of course, a good DM wouldn't do that in a low-magic campaing, but a good DM would also keep magic items special in a high-magic campaign, and keep a medieval feel to a high-magic campaign, for instance.

My use of "bad DM" was more to indicate those who didn't apply the RAW to normal magic, and thus ruined the "power of magic." Having +5 items available in shops, having commoners wielding magic longswords, having magic replace technology, using magic as a crutch, eradicating every significant challenge, destroying the semi-medieval feel, allowing people to be defined by their items, etc....these are all symptomatic of particular DM's at particular moments that didn't handle the power in a way that is fun for most people (though I'm sure there's someone someplace who would like the idea of commonners all wielding magic longswords. ) Someone who plays low-magic is by not measure of the imagination nessecarily better at D&D for some reason. Low-magic has it's own traps to fall into (DM power-tripping, over-estimating player capability, the feel that you characters are useless, the loss of any mystical potential) that are no less desctructive for fun potential. They don't HAVE to understand the rules better. And it's not by any stretch nessecarily true that they do just because they play low-magic D&D.

Running an interesting, longterm D&D campaign is a challenge no matter what type of game you run.

One of the most true statements ever spoken on a D&D messageboard.

------------------
On the otherside, we've got the verisimilitude of normal magic being struck at now. To which I think a CS like Eberron has many immensely superb answers....

I don't think it's rationalization to say "these wouldn't have that big of an impact," any more than it is an over-reaction to say "CREATE WATER IS BROKEN!"

but I'm gonna start a new thread with them.

 

[barsoomcore]

Some things shouldn't be taken for granted:

Verisimilitude is good. (It is? Says who?)

High-magic means more options. (More high-magic options, I guess, but not more options)

Magic that doesn't feel special is bad. (It's good. It's just not special)

 

[der_kluge]

Some things shouldn't be taken for granted:

Verisimilitude is good. (It is? Says who?)

In general, I agree, but verisimilitude is good if you have players like I do that constantly question everything about the world. If it's not consistent, you lose credibility.


And for the record, I just love the word verisimilitude, and talking with people that know what it means!

 

[molonel]

See, I just read an anthology of the original Conan stories myself, and I think you are really missing something. One of the things I was struck by was that Conan relied on cunning as much as brawn, and more surprisingly, relied on superior (though non magic) equipment as often as he could. In the dozen or so stories I just read, Conan was saved by heavy armor and / or helmets in at least half of them, by having a weapon with longer reach in at least one, and by superior tactics in three or four. And Conan did run away from fights a few times incidentally. Yes, Conan was stronger than any opponent he faced, but unlike most RPG characters, Conan knew he couldn't face a mob of opponents all by himself unless he had some major advantage on his side (like he had heavy armor and they did not).

Actually, I understand all that. In "The Phoenix on the Sword" the assassins who are trying to kill Conan revel in the fact that he didn't have time to don his helm. I obviously appreciate the character, otherwise I wouldn't be rereading the entire series of books for the fourth time.

But the fact is, Conan was still stronger than every other living human being he ever met. There was one priest who strangled people as part of his worship, and he'd been raised strangling people his entire life, and he could snap a normal man's neck like a dry twig. After Conan snapped his neck, he thought to himself, "Wow, that guy was almost as strong as me!" And that was supposed to be considered a compliment. Toward the end of the series, Conan is still, in his sixties, faster than a rapier-wielding swashbuckler. Throughout the books, Conan is stronger than every warrior he meets, a more skilled fighter than everyone he fights, faster than any human being, tougher than any mountain stone, quieter than a ninja, and a more skilled woodsman than any native of any terrain. It's a kick ass story, and he's a kick ass character. Robert E. Howard, at the top of his game, was an extraordinary writer.

But it is somewhat misleading to say, "Well, Conan didn't have a bunch of magic items!"

Obviously. He didn't need them. Why would he need a Belt of Giant Strength? He was stronger than everyone already. Why would he need Gloves of Dexterity? He was already faster than everyone. Why he need an item to increase his Constitution? He was already tougher than everyone else.

For those who are interested, this is the best recreation of Conan I've seen for d20, although it was for 3.0 rules:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/adilbrand/conan.htm

Now, before anyone says it, I know Mongoose has translated Hyborea into a playable game. But the problem I'm talking about is using the characters themselves as models for creating the game, rather than the worlds. And I've seen people make that mistake. Worlds like Conan d20, Midnight and d20 Testament have done extensive rewrites of the d20 system to account for low-magic worlds.

Most low magic games I've seen rarely last past 4th to 6th level, because a lot of people who feel threatened or intimidated by character power rarely want to play mid- or high-level characters, anyway, and the game starts to unravel very quickly at that point if you haven't thought through the impact on the game mechanics of playing low-magic.

So what is preventing 5 or 6 party members with complimentary skills from being able to handle what one or two super heroic characters could?

Most campaigns are played somewhere between levels 1 and 10. Those are the most commonly played levels, and that's been confirmed through a plethora of online polls. One of the problems with D&D 3.0 was that they only really playtested levels 1 through 10 well, and that's why a large part of the perceived problems that were fixed in 3.5, like the three H's: Haste, Harm and Heal, or Time Stop, or DR, carried the largest part of their impact into higher level games.

It depends on what sort of 5 or 6 party members we're talking about. Will five or six 2nd level characters be able to recreate the adventures of Conan? Sure. The early Conan. The Conan who ran from wolves, and encountered the thing in the crypt to get his first sword. But there is a translation process that needs to take place, and like any translation, often things are lost in the process.

This is a reflection of the widespread misunderstanding of, and virtual contempt for "mundane" martial items such as weapons and armor. I've seen some historically accurate riveted link and welded link mail armor which is practically indestructable, and I guarantee you it wasn't made of mythral or by dwarves. I think it's the monty haul mentality in RPG's which has contributed to the idea that real kit is lame. It's like people who demand UFO's or Loch Ness Monster and never even realise how cool real earth critters actually are.

I studied medieval literature as a graduate student, and that involved delving into Anglo-Saxon archaeology. I also have a lifelong interest in reading about forging, and ancient weapons. This has resulted in creating custom forging rules, and special materials and effects uncreatable by magic alone in some of my games. I've played a character as a dwarven master smith all the way from 1st through 21st level in a 3-year campaign, and fiddled with mechanics and roleplaying scenarios as I sought mentors, forging techniques from different races (including salamanders) and skill-enhancing items.

As a result, I've put a lot of work into creating alternate schemes for enhancing and creating items.

Responding to what you've said, although I've seen the incredible levels of craftsmanship possible using only mundane materials in THIS world, and without the benefit of magic, I still think that having a dragon with a bite-span of several feet pick you up and try to bite through your armor would test even the best-forged chainmail links in this world. Beowulf cuts a dragon in half with a dagger, and even if you take the perspective that he was actually wielding a short sword, and delivering a coup de grace, nevertheless, the actions of many so-called low heroes in classical literature is often beyond the ken or abilities of some high-magic heroes loaded to the gills, and every magic item slot filled.

The weapons and armor used by Beowulf seemed like magic to those people, because a) the whole world was magical to them, and b) these particular weapons were so extraordinarily awesome and beautiful. For example, when Beowulf uses Unferth's sword, "the curious sword with a wavy pattern, hard of its edge" he is talking about a pattern welded sword. These are real. Have you ever seen one?

I have. Still, however, all I'm trying to say is that when people argue that "Real heroes don't have a bunch of magic items to make them powerful" I think they fail to take into account the obvious quality of the gear that heroes in literature possessed. If anyone expects me to believe that Beowful was wearing a mere masterwork quality chain shirt, I'm sorry, that's going to be a rather hard sell.

They are incredibly beautiful and extremely potent weapons of reality. My point here is this idea that real kit is lame or worthless is bankrupt. Players should have a lot of options, but they don't have to shoot lazer beams or summon demons to be cool.

Nor do I think so. But then again, I've put a lot of work into develop non-magical options into the games I've played. And I think that people drastically underestimate the effects described in classical and imaginative literature when they think that all heroes walked around in standard mundane gear.

I don't agree, it's only low magic compared to the rest of whats out there. As I said before, spells like invisibility are high magic spells!

If by low magic you mean no magic or mundane, I guess I can see your point. But it seems like all you're doing is flipping around the picture and looking at it from the bottom up. If you consider invisibility a high magic spell, then you're looking at it from the perspective of a very low-magic setting.

I may have a particular perspective, and I freely admit that. But then again, so do you.

As for spells like teleport and ressurection not affecting the attitudes of players toward the game, we'll just have to agree to disagree I fear...

I'm content to agree to disagree.

 

[molonel]

Reading through your post, mmadsen, I find a whole lot of sniping, and a lot of question marks. I've made a significant effort to explain my position, and I feel that several of your questions are already answered or addressed in what I've said already. I'm willing to interact with you, certainly, but I feel mostly that you're simply asking me to come back onstage and do an encore.

So, to answer your questions in order:

1. No, there is nothing wrong with reducing math or the number of magic items. I said I've run in low magic games, and I will do so again.

2. No, there is nothing wrong with focusing on character. I've made that quite clear. I simply feel that the excuse of wanting to "focus on character" sometimes veils a desire to keep players in a position of weakness. "Low magic" often seems to very easily translate into "low power." Since high fantasy, high magic games are not antithetical to good roleplaying, and low-magic, low-fantasy games do not necessarily breed riches stories or believable characters, and since part of why I said that was in response to people who seem to believe otherwise, I think my comments were both justifiable and rather clear.

3. No, there is nothing wrong with enjoying those works, and since I have all of them on my shelves and have made knowledgeable reference to them in this discussion, that ought to be clear.

4. No, Conan did not merely beat mundane foes, and if you think that, I suggest you reread the series.

5. No, he did not merely beat appropriate challenges for a single PC, and if you think that, you DEFINITELY need to reread the series.