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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 1702123" data-attributes="member: 463">I think it's certainly very hard to run a plausible, self-consistent high-magic (or D&D 3e standard-magic) campaign in a believable world, and takes a very good DM to do so.  Not many even try though - "internal consistency of a Hanna Barbara cartoon" is all WoTC aims for, and few DMs do more than that.  Of course it also takes a good GM, of a different sort, to run challenging and interesting high-level high-magic battles in 3e, my experience has been that it's much harder than in 1e-2e, the line between ridiculously easy and TPK in 3e is so narrow.  I'd call the latter kind of GM the 'Monte Cook' GM - world-building is not their forte, their forte is running high-powered battle scenarios.  The former kind of GM seems very rare in 3e since WoTC seem to almost actively discourage this approach.  A good high-magic setting-designer would be Aaron Allston, who wrote the Dawn of the Emperors boxed set for the Mystara BEXCMI OD&D setting.  That featured a plausible and self-consistent ultra-high-magic setting in the Alphatian Empire.  I've seen a few high-magic-setting GMs on ENW like Shark and the Urbis guy, but they seem a small minority.Myself, I've designed high-magic settings but 3e standard magic is an uncomfortable fit with most of my gameworlds, which predate 3e, so I've had to tone the rules down to fit the setting.  And while I enjoyed running deity-level AD&D (eg with Upper_Krust's Thrin PC) I find now that running high-magic 3e games often involves sitting around for half the session while the Wizard PCs plan their spell selection, which can get very boring.  Generally I find running low-magic to be easier and more fun.</blockquote>

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