One of the splits in Fantasy RPG appetites concerns the magic that the characters possess and are exposed to in their Fantasy worlds. I, like many others, need the power levels dialed way back from mainstream RPGs. What motivates this change? The answers to that question are many.
Seeking a Specific Fantasy Subgenre
Ubiquitous and powerful magics change the Fantasy subgenres, and for me in a direction I did not want. What woke me to the subgenre problem began many years ago, for a long campaign I was in was sullied with this problem. At the end, it felt more like "Star Trek Fantasy" than the subgenre I really wanted: Teleportation, long-distance telepathy, gargantuan explosions (= transporters, communicators, photon torpedoes), etc. The feeling of, "I'm a lone knight in a Dark Age traversing the dangers of the wild" was gone. Did my character (or beloved NPCs) die? No problem. There was always a good chance to get resurrected.
Many of us love (& were brought into RPGs because of) Lord of the Rings. But consider
trying to play spell-casters in Middle Earth using conventional RPGs (like D&D). Even a starting caster would astound people all over a Middle Earth-type world. And, quite soon, you're (in many regards) as powerful as Gandalf: Explosions, flying in the air, teleporting, lightning bolts, etc. The One Ring, which flabbergasts onlookers by turning the wearers invisible, is just a low-level spell. Let the campaign continue on to high levels, and your caster would be a god who could overthrow Sauron.
And so, for me it’s primarily about preserving a particular subgenre of Fantasy, one where manifestations of the supernatural feel remarkable, awe-inspiring, even terrifying. I want the characters to keep a “feet on the ground” feeling, mortal and vulnerable.
Perhaps this is why many choose to "retire" their characters once they (following the mechanics of their RPG) become so powerful. I personally loathe this notion. I want to have the option of playing the same character for many years of his life without feeling that he's become a godling.
While everyone in my Fantasy world has no doubt that supernatural beings and forces are real & all over the world (gods in the sky, spirits in the forests & mountains, demons in caverns, etc.), having any access, understanding or control of such power is unheard of. “Magic” is ephemeral, something in the realm of the gods and eternal spirits.
This paradigm is on the other end of Arthur Clarke’s, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Science & modern technology give us control: Measurements and equations. My Fantasy subgenre’s magic is the rare tapping into the ineffable—the strange realm of the faerie. Magic is bound up with mystery and (sometimes) the divine. Some characters may actually be terrified, believing that magic comes from demons. (And sometimes, they're right!) Knowing that someone possesses magic should always change the way they are viewed in significant ways.
In the subgenre I seek, magic is on the other side of a chasm that no ‘technology’ could ever cross, for it is super-natural. Adopting this structure changes your worlds, preventing the slippery slope into (even unintentional) powergaming and a comic book, superhero Fantasy setting.
Avoiding the Arms Race
The “Arms Race” of magic is significantly avoided with this change. That is, when spells (especially powerful ones) are common in your worlds, in order for characters to have a chance at success the door must be open for them to deal with such powers. If they are spell casters, they must be given more and greater spells to compete. And if they are not casters, they must be given either ‘skills’, magical items, or other such gaming mechanisms to compete.
As a campaign progresses under the standard model, the characters inevitably possess a host of supernatural abilities (offensive, defensive, both) to remain competitive with the rest of such powers in their world. They are thus transformed into some version of comic book characters, which means that your world is also changed. Many gamers are content with such subgenres (some level of “Superhero-Fantasy”). But for we who are not, the culprit is how magic is employed in the world.
Making Magic Rare, Restrained, & Mysterious
Rare
To preserve this feeling/subgenre I want, all magic in the gaming worlds must be changed, made far more rare than is conventional. For me (at least) this means eliminating anything like city “Wow-Marts” (shops that sell magical items), “Magic Colleges”, and the like. Magical items are so rare & precious that they would never be sold for anything less than a horde of gold. It also means that any person who can wield any kind of magic must be exceptionally rare, not merely 1%, but closer to 1/10,000 or even moreso. The more rare, the more special it feels.
In this setting, when anyone sees any clear manifestation of magic, they are struck with awe, shock, and often terror. Something related to the realm of the gods (or spirits or demons, etc.) is right in front of them. Nonchalance is gone.
One option for groups is that no player has any spell casting PCs. This is a great way to avoid most of the problems, but my guess is that most of the time it runs counter to many players’ desires. And it’s not necessary. We can allow them to have magic as long as it’s reshaped to accommodate the subgenre we’re after.
Restrained
Aside from the rarity, magic can be dialed way back in each manifestation. Conventional RPG spell lists have to be critiqued and hamstrung (if they’re used at all). This prevents characters from ever having godlike powers, like ever being able to cast “bombs”, fly like Superman or teleport like Star Trek. Each spell remains truly remarkable and invaluable because the world’s context has changed, but the threat of the subgenre changing has been removed. The conventional paradigm fosters, "Oh, that's just a light spell," or "That's just a magic-missile spell." Yawn.
In conventional RPGs, a spell healing a wound takes a few seconds, allowing someone on Death’s Door to spring up and start swinging. When this is changed to each healing spell taking an hour or so, and only offering a fraction of the healing needed to be whole, then wounds truly matter again. What the caster does is still miraculous, but the feelings of mortal concerns are preserved.
Mysterious
The 3rd powerful component for this goal is to keep the facts about magic concealed from the players. This is aided by the rules-opacity I’ve discussed before. Players should never read the explanations of how different casters function, their spell lists, etc. Magical items, if ever found, possess magics that the characters only partially come to understand. The caster PCs’ knowledge is restricted to what their characters understand, not the actual mechanics/stats of each spell.
Once we can dissect something confidently, we gain the feeling of control. That is the feeling of Modernity. The subgenre I want is on the other end of that spectrum. The supernatural is the “other”, something we can never truly understand or govern.
-Daniel
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