The End of 4e D&D.

[Roy]

Both "Magic Items are rare and Special" and "Magic Items are necessary tools of the trade" are valid ways to design a game. The problem is that the two are fundamentally incompatible and there is horrible miscommunication and lack of understanding between DMs and Designers on which method is being used.

Precisely. Low magic only works in systems designed for it, aka not D&D. Though given the sorts of people it attracts (namely, people with no creativity scared to give their players actual options) it's still fair to call low magic a bad idea, even in the systems where it isn't automatically doomed to fail.

[PoliteNewb]

Though given the sorts of people it attracts (namely, people with no creativity scared to give their players actual options) it's still fair to call low magic a bad idea, even in the systems where it isn't automatically doomed to fail.

Fuck you, and the bullshit generalization you rode in on.

[Roy]

Though given the sorts of people it attracts (namely, people with no creativity scared to give their players actual options) it's still fair to call low magic a bad idea, even in the systems where it isn't automatically doomed to fail.

Fuck you, and the bullshit generalization you rode in on.

Sounds like I found a low magic tard.

[PoliteNewb]

Though given the sorts of people it attracts (namely, people with no creativity scared to give their players actual options) it's still fair to call low magic a bad idea, even in the systems where it isn't automatically doomed to fail.

Fuck you, and the bullshit generalization you rode in on.

Sounds like I found a low magic tard.

You can call people names if it makes you feel like a big man.

There are times when low magic has nothing whatsoever to do with player options, but has to do with setting and genre conventions. I know it's hard for you to wrap your tiny brain around people wanting to play games set in a world without magic, but some people do enjoy games set in historical settings, or George R.R. Martin's Westeros, or the myriad other settings where magic has little or no place.

Hence, I reiterate my sentiments.

[Doom]

I dunno, I'm thinking magic is having more and more of a place in Westeros....

[Psychic Robot]

Roy, stop being a twat.

[Roy]

You can tell a lot about a person by the choices they make. When someone selects a type of game, it says something about what they'd like to play. It also says something about them. And yes, that does mean selecting something that greatly limits the options available to players suggests that you cannot deal with said options, or else why take them away?

So you can try to dismiss it as merely name calling, but in keeping with Den tradition it's name calling coupled with correct and useful information.

[Psychic Robot]

You can tell a lot about a person by the choices they make. When someone selects a type of game, it says something about what they'd like to play. It also says something about them. And yes, that does mean selecting something that greatly limits the options available to players suggests that you cannot deal with said options, or else why take them away?

So you can try to dismiss it as merely name calling, but in keeping with Den tradition it's name calling coupled with correct and useful information.

Trolling is a art.

[PoliteNewb]

You can tell a lot about a person by the choices they make. When someone selects a type of game, it says something about what they'd like to play. It also says something about them. And yes, that does mean selecting something that greatly limits the options available to players suggests that you cannot deal with said options, or else why take them away?

Maybe because they don't exist in the setting? If you don't let people play astronauts in a game set in the Wild West, is that because you just like to arbitrarily limit options for players, because you can't deal with it? WTF?

There are no astronauts (or magic, for that matter) in the Wild West. That has nothing to do with what options you're okay giving your players, or what you can or cannot deal with. A guy can enjoy running D&D, Traveler, and Dogs In the Vineyard...but not all at once.

Of course, I expect you to ignore this the way you ignored it the first time, but genre and setting are important.

So you can try to dismiss it as merely name calling, but in keeping with Den tradition it's name calling coupled with correct and useful information.

That'd be great, if your information was correct and useful, instead of directly ignoring reality. So yeah, I'm going to dismiss it as what it was.

I dunno, I'm thinking magic is having more and more of a place in Westeros....

Yeah, I can see that...but I doubt you'll see wizards casting fireball or teleporting around. I can't see Westeros as anything other than what Roy would define as "low magic".

And the current SOIAF game by Green Ronin has no rules for magic...but it's still an excellent game, and I like playing it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Though given the sorts of people it attracts (namely, people with no creativity scared to give their players actual options) it's still fair to call low magic a bad idea,

Thanks for the blatant strawman, Roy.

Now I like high-powered shenanigans as much as the next guy, but seriously, sometimes it's fun to kick back and put yourself in the roles of a group of noob peasants who are seeking revenge for their hamlet burned down and the maximum amount of asskicking they get over the course of the story is at the town guard level. For fuck's sake, you seriously can't get more low-powered than Mouse Guard and from what I've heard people love the system.

Granted, I hate what D&D does and tries to shoehorn in a low-magic paradigm where it doesn't fucking belong. To the point where I automatically cringe when some DM says that magical items are rare in their campaign. Like in the 4E Dark Sun Campaign setting; seriously, the no-Magic Items variant should've been friggin' required, but the 'low magic' feel that they were trying to go for (at least at low levels) just does NOT WORK with the mechanics. Or when people try to convince me that that Aragon and King Arthur are archetypes we should support for high-level play and we get total bullshit like the Epic-Level Handbook and epic levels period in 4E.

But if a game is upfront about its low-magic origins then it's okay. I mean, seriously, not all stories require that the heroes have more super powers than what Harry and friends had at the end of the Philosopher's Stone. And sometimes I want to play those stories.

[Psychic Robot]

the 'low magic' feel that they were trying to go for (at least at low levels) just does NOT WORK with the mechanics.

More details requested. I have not read the rules regarding this.

[Lago PARANOIA]

It's a WSoD thing. I could accept a 'magic can't fix these problems', at least how it was described to me for 2E, because magic was a rare thing.

But 4E pretty much litters the landscape with magical items. Seriously, a 4th level character is supposed to have at least four of them--then again, they're not supposed to be metal, but whatever. While it doesn't particularly matter since 4E magical items hardly do donkey dick outside of a combat context, it hurts believability of the game to me to have a party of characters with access to wild and woolly powers and blinged up with at least 20 magical items between them but the game to tell me that their biggest concern is finding water.

And no, I don't want to hear bullshit excuses like 'magic is only good for destruction, not creation!'. That stuff is on the level of incompatible power supplies for the holodeck of USS Voyager in terms of handwaving. As in, while it makes internal sense it's so goddamned contrived that any consistency points it might have gained gets thrown out the window. The worst thing about this whole shabeel is that it's so unnecessary. I mean Mike Mearls printed a 'campaign without magical items' variant in the DMG2 and since they're taking extreme steps to neuter any kind of bonus or synergy from the magical item system by the time they're done with that you won't see much of a difference anyway.

[Josh_Kablack]

You are HEAVILY overestimating the number of things that needed better than a +1 weapon to be hit. Hell, even a fair number of demons and devils could be hit by completely normal weapons (not even silver/cold iron). And in 1E/2E (unlike 3.0 and higher) things like Lycanthropes and Jackalweres were fully harmed by +1 or better weapons, even if they weren't silver or cold iron.

I was all set to back off and apologize for basing my assertion on my actual game experiences in those editions instead of actual monster stat blocks, but then I reread what I actually wrote in my prior post.

The way you respond to arguments that weren't even quite there and your above conflation of 3.0 with 3.5 damage reduction rules above combine to give you some nice grognard cred. So I'm going quit arguing with you.

Instead I'll just make you an offer, seeing as you've apparently misplaced your 1st ed monster manual, I'm willing to give you my spare, just show up at the Pitt gaming club on Saturday.

[TheFlatline]

Though given the sorts of people it attracts (namely, people with no creativity scared to give their players actual options) it's still fair to call low magic a bad idea, even in the systems where it isn't automatically doomed to fail.

Sadly, high magic settings and magical items aren't about encouraging creativity, it's about handwaving your way out of needing to think.

High magic fans are simply lazy uncreative retards who can't think of legitimate, realistic options, so they say "fuck it, I'll say there's a spell/wand/magic dildo that does what I want". And it's okay if it doesn't make sense or it's broken or overpowered or sucks shit through a tube, because it's magic!

[Roy]

Maybe because they don't exist in the setting? If you don't let people play astronauts in a game set in the Wild West, is that because you just like to arbitrarily limit options for players, because you can't deal with it? WTF?

There are no astronauts (or magic, for that matter) in the Wild West. That has nothing to do with what options you're okay giving your players, or what you can or cannot deal with. A guy can enjoy running D&D, Traveler, and Dogs In the Vineyard...but not all at once.

Except that it does, because you, the DM are choosing to run things in 'the Wild West', knowing exactly what this means as opposed to some other setting. Which you know, is exactly what I said. Try to follow along. Conversely if you were ok with those things you'd pick the space age for astronauts, or a fantasy setting for magic or whatever.

[Copy/paste definition of displacement here.]

Hi Welcome

[PhoneLobster]

Though given the sorts of people it attracts (namely, people with no creativity scared to give their players actual options) it's still fair to call low magic a bad idea

I'm giving Roy my full moral support on this one.

I mean yeah SURE theoretically a low magic game COULD work.

But he is indeed right that in practice every, single, last, god, damn, proponent of the idea I have ever seen argue in favor of low magic has done so stupidly, ever last low magic mechanic, system or game I have seen has been stupid.

Think of it as every damn idea in 4E. Sure it SOUNDS good, but the practical implementation of it has been so bad that the even the good idea itself is now tainted pretty much beyond salvage.

I mean to make "low magic" acceptable now you are going to have to at least rebrand it in order to officially distance yourself from it's traditional proponents.

[Murtak]

I can see both high and low magic games working, but either has to distinguish themselves from the default fantasy setting, which is still DnD.

And to do that you have to rigorously define how your setting works. DnD is simultaneously or alternatively high magic, low magic and wtf, which is why we can base any vaguely fantasy-ish idea on DnD but also causes any of those settings to explode if exposed to scrutiny. To stand apart from this madness you have to carefully build your own world and setting. This is hard, no matter whether you do high or low magic.

I can easily imagine playing in a setting akin to Lankhmar or one of Hohlbein's tales, where magic is for NPCs and always has horrible consequences. I would totally play a campaign set in the One Kingdom, or in the world of Abhorsen. I'd love to play in Amber. I'd be happy to give the Night Watch setting a go, or maybe the Malazan Empire. But each of those needs to define what magic can and can not do and then work out what that means for the setting. DnD does neither and as a result none of the DnD settings work. I love the game, but seriously, you have to use blinders constantly to remain sane. Going low, high or mid fantasy changes nothing about that basic fact.

Shadowrun does define what magic (and technology) can do and as a result you can work out how the setting functions. Sure, some of what has been written is bullshit, and many other parts need slight adjustments. But the basic setup makes sense. This is what a setting needs to aim for, and this is where 90% of all settings and adventures I ever read fail. I am fine with a game (or movie, or book) telling me that mages can call up the elements. But given that premise the rest of the setting has to make sense, too. And if, say, mages can nuke a building in one blast and only show a little sweat for it, I have a hard time accepting tanks invading a country without getting nuked into molten slag. And on the other hand of the spectrum, if magic is weak and only useful for various divinations I can't really accept a magic river that cures all illnesses, or at least not without entire nations fighting over it.

Hell, I have a hard time thinking of settings - no matter if from games, movies or books - where magic does not either wildly vary in power and capability or one without magic plotline artifacts.

In short: I posit that writing coherent settings is hard and that most attempts fail horribly, no matter what kind of magic (if any) the setting contains.

[PoliteNewb]

Except that it does, because you, the DM are choosing to run things in 'the Wild West', knowing exactly what this means as opposed to some other setting. Which you know, is exactly what I said. Try to follow along. Conversely if you were ok with those things you'd pick the space age for astronauts, or a fantasy setting for magic or whatever.

Try to follow the chain of logic here for a sec:

Roy: "people who choose to play low magic are uncreative retards who can't handle high magic"
Me: "what about games that simply HAVE no magic?"
Roy: "well, they choose to play those, and since they chose low magic, they're retards"
Me: "so only retards ever play games set in the Wild West, or WWII, or cold war espionage? Or any game that don't involve magic?"
Roy: "yeah, I just said that."
Me: "so what if those SAME FUCKING PEOPLE also play high magic D&D, and enjoy it? People can't choose to like TWO THINGS? If they ever choose a low-magic option, it's because they're an uncreative retard?"

You're into some circular-logic-circle-jerk, where people who play low magic are retards, because they play low magic, because they're retards, because they play low magic. It's like a bizarre version of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Are you trying to say people who ONLY pick low magic are uncreative? Because I could acknowledge that, even if I don't agree with it (which I don't). But you are seriously making no sense here.

[Roy]

That's because you're not following along, instead you're following a strawman.

Now let's be honest. If you play something based on WW2 your chances of accomplishing anything that fucking matters at all is as close to zero as possible without actually being zero. Because there are millions of people involved in WW2, and only a handful actually accomplished anything. The rest either simply did their jobs, if they were lucky or died in the trenches if they weren't.

The cold war, by definition is a fucking stalemate. Guess what? You're not accomplishing anything.

You might actually do something in the wild west but all it takes it for a pissed off drunk to bust a cap in your ass to get an instant game over.

And as a DM, when you select any of these settings you are doing so knowing the players won't get to fucking accomplish anything. Which means the only reason why you'd do that is if you don't want them to. Aka, you can't handle your players having any actual options and creativity, so you shove them onto your railroad. Alternately, it's because you are in fact a retard that cannot follow simple correlations such as this.

When it comes down to it any game that doesn't have high magic (or high technology, which becomes hard to distinguish from magic after a certain point) doesn't leave a whole lot for you to do. That's kinda the whole reason why someone would choose to play a game at all, so they have more options than they do in the real world. Otherwise you could just ya know, go accomplish something outside.

So yes, you are saying you're a bad person when you express any desire to run a low magic game. And if you are trying to run D&D as a low magic game, there is a 100% chance you will fail. If you instead find a system designed from the ground up as low magic you'll still most likely fail, but have a non zero chance to succeed in making a low magic game... which is still bad, and you should feel bad about.

And if you're saying you like two different conflicting things like that, what you are saying is that you fit more in the retard than the malicious category, aka you don't really know what you want, so you flail around without a clue. This is... both better and worse than active malice. But ultimately the confusion about D&D comes from herp derp from LotR. So every time a person like this pops up, we have Lego My Eggolas to thank for it.

So thank you silly elf guy, for being one of the biggest problems with D&D.

[Psychic Robot]

Reasoning with Roy is an exercise in futility.

[Juton]

You can still have a satisfying game without saving the entire world or multiverse. If in a WWII game you manage to save a village that would otherwise be destroyed that's a real palpable victory, saving a few hundred lives can be just as engrossing to a player as saving millions. Low magic can be used as an excuse to railroad DMs, but tons of interesting games can be run in low-magic worlds, accomplishing something less than changing the world isn't the same as accomplishing nothing.

[violence in the media]

When it comes down to it any game that doesn't have high magic (or high technology, which becomes hard to distinguish from magic after a certain point) doesn't leave a whole lot for you to do. That's kinda the whole reason why someone would choose to play a game at all, so they have more options than they do in the real world. Otherwise you could just ya know, go accomplish something outside.

The rest of the debate aside, I think this is an excellent point for consideration. Would your D&D character play a game like D&D within his or her world in their free time? If so, why?

I think that they would not, as it would be akin to Richard Branson taking time out of his busy schedule of banging supermodels, starting businesses, and being a playboy adventurer to play Life or Monopoly.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Let us never forget the games where we play people with even less options than ourselves, for the pathos or (more importantly) the low comedy.

[PoliteNewb]

All right, let's sum up Roy's argument:

1.) If you can't "accomplish anything" (not defined), the game is always pointless, and you should never play it...including, I would imagine games like Chess.
2.) If you play a game where you "can't accomplish anything", it's always because you "can't handle your players having any actual options and creativity" (also not defined, by the way), not because, I dunno...you actually LIKE that setting or genre.
3.) any game where you can't change the world must automatically have railroaded plots.
4.) any game without "high magic or high technology" is pointless, and there is nothing to do.
5.) choosing to run or enjoy games Roy doesn't enjoy makes you a bad person. this is apparently objective, because subjective likes/dislikes don't exist.
6.) if a game doesn't have high magic/high technology, it is no different than real life...which means I guess I can go be a wild west cowboy and shoot banditos if I want, or hunt werewolves with silver bullets. Neat.
7.) people can't like two things that are dissimilar...doing that is also retarded, I guess.

Yeah, I think we've established who the retard is. Can you even hear yourself?

Fuck it, I give up.

[TheFlatline]

The cold war, by definition is a fucking stalemate. Guess what? You're not accomplishing anything.

Tom Clancy has made more money than you will ever see in your life proving you're wrong before you even made the argument.

Hell, let's extend that to the entire fiction section of literature.

You must have a miserable, boring life if you don't see the potential for adventure and excitement in the "mundane" world.