2e - why you think it sucks, and why you're right

[Beoric]

Having a single city with continual light lamps is never going to crash a game on its own, having an entire setting that treats magic like a technological commodity and strips the wonder and imagination from a game can be a contributing factor in why a game fails to entice.

I note that magitech as a commodity doesn't do this if there are other sources of wonder in the game. Really you just need the magic (or science) used by team monster to be unfamiliar or unpredictable.

I mean, if noone knows if the gods exist, and clerical magic is a matter of faith, and the seals that bind the demons of the first age are crumbling and the secrets for maintaining them are lost, and the underworld is thought to be the body of a great dragon, and its tunnels open up into strange worlds and demiplanes, and the dream masters are trying to transform your society by invading the minds of sleeping leaders, and dragons and fiends are engaged in a secret cold war for control of the Great Prophecy, what does it matter if the streets are well lit and magewrights can churn out crossbows of magic missiles for cheap?

 

[PrinceofNothing]

I note that magitech as a commodity doesn't do this if there are other sources of wonder in the game. Really you just need the magic (or science) used by team monster to be unfamiliar or unpredictable.

I mean, if noone knows if the gods exist, and clerical magic is a matter of faith, and the seals that bind the demons of the first age are crumbling and the secrets for maintaining them are lost, and the underworld is thought to be the body of a great dragon, and its tunnels open up into strange worlds and demiplanes, and the dream masters are trying to transform your society by invading the minds of sleeping leaders, and dragons and fiends are engaged in a secret cold war for control of the Great Prophecy, what does it matter if the streets are well lit and magewrights can churn out crossbows of magic missiles for cheap?

Totally (and also Ebberon I think, which I didn't hate, though Goodman's Morningstar was a better take on the same concept). But can you see how having a situation where A) magic is commonplace in a really boring way where you and your opponents use the same magic system B) that magic system is so familiar and predictable it is used for common household applications and C) monsters are so commonplace cities have standardized countermeasures against them D) adventurers are not pioneers and renegades but all part of a mercantile guild with rules etc. etc. etc. leads to a game that has less magic and mystery in it? I bring up magic item shoppes and continual light streets because it is an emblematic example of a way of treating the supernatural as commonplace and mundane in a campaign setting. There's no reason you can't compensate for this in other areas, as you have pointed out.

 

[The1True]

The difficulty with the commonality of magical wonders is, for me, where do you go from there to invoke wonder?

That's fair. I think the happy medium for our group is a world where peasants can't afford a Raise Dead, the town - if it is lit at all - is torchlit or has torch bearers BUT the small town blacksmith has one or two old +1 heirlooms in the back he can sell you and the big city has a Shoppe of Curiosities, and a couple of Master Craftsmen/Artificers for custom work.
Definitely as a DM I have hated letting the players equip themselves in this way, possibly against my will; but as a player I have zealously defended the agency purchasing/creating my own items engenders. If I'm getting sick of your bullshit level-drains, I'm going to build a suit of Deathward armour bro. Find a new way to pick on my character! And yeah, I can see what Prince is saying, that does somewhat detract from the mystery and wonder of unearthed arcana, but in a fantasy world full of weirdness, not letting my character fight fire with fire smacks of injustice.

 

[The1True]

Really you just need the magic (or science) used by team monster to be unfamiliar or unpredictable.

I think Bryce has written words to this effect once or twice as well and I'm coming around to it. You shouldn't have to explain the NPC's powers. They just have them. Period. Write it into the description.
That's definitely one of the benefits of the oldschool stat-blocks. The old hag o' the swamp can cast fireball AND cure light wounds? cool. 3rd ed. I'd have to come up with a bloody template or supernatural ability to explain it and she'd be a CR 12 monster instead of the dinky little 5th lvl threat she was meant to be.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Definitely as a DM I have hated letting the players equip themselves in this way, possibly against my will; but as a player I have zealously defended the agency purchasing/creating my own items engenders. If I'm getting sick of your bullshit level-drains, I'm going to build a suit of Deathward armour bro. Find a new way to pick on my character! And yeah, I can see what Prince is saying, that does somewhat detract from the mystery and wonder of unearthed arcana, but in a fantasy world full of weirdness, not letting my character fight fire with fire smacks of injustice.

That's cool, your players should be able to obtain measures to counter persistent threats or at least ameliorate them, but its that crucial difference between getting Murglagh the Necromancer to grudgingly fashion one for you if you get him enough Gorgon Bones (though take heed, for he always works a subtle curse into any gift me provides) after wading through The Red Fens for nine days or moving over to Havlock & Grummit's Magic Item Emporium in Stallanford, Tennessee, standing in line behind three other adventuring parties and picking one from the counter after you show your +2 armor licence.

The best counter against Wights at low level is henchmen and silver daggers. Apply repeatedly and make sure the stragglers know to keep their silence. Protection From Evil, Clerics, most threats in D&D don't really need specific magic items to counter them (exception being the +1 or greater to hit monsters).

 

[DangerousPuhson]

The "Wonder and/or Absence of Magic" is setting specific. In some places it makes more sense and feels less out of place than in others.

The wonder of a place like Eberron doesn't derive from the scarcity or commonality of its magic - it's all about what the setting does with the magic. Like "here's a thing that exists in the world, it is a reality of life here - how does it affect day-to-day activity?"... that's the draw of Eberron, the sort of magic is a real thing that people can use, so obviously it changes the way society functions. Less about "wow a guy shot lightning from his hands, so amazing!", and more about "holy shit, is that a fucking train in my D&D game!?"

You can also have things like high and low magic (Resurrection vs. Cure Light Wounds, for example), magic that is rare because it requires extremely rare ingredients ("Did that guy just teleport? Shit, you need a dragon's tooth for that spell! Where would he have possibly gotten that?"), all custom spells that don't match the look of the PHB spells (Magic Missiles that look like a flock of screaming ravens), or a land where magic is invented on the spot and succeeds or fails based on the phases of the moon, or whatever.

The wonder derived from the contrast of magic is not about the presence or absence of magic in common places, but rather the how the magic encountered compares with the already established magical norms of the world. Maybe in your world every good matron has a little mother's curative charm to mend a child's skinned knee... but when you see a crazy, wild-eyed old woman stealing and hoarding charms in a desperate attempt to revive her dead infant son, only to have crazy zombie kid go all Pet Sematary on things, your players are still going to be wow'd. And it's because of what you've done with the established, understood rules of magic in the setting, not because you've removed magic only to add it back once you need some "wonder".

 

[Beoric]

Totally (and also Ebberon I think, which I didn't hate, though Goodman's Morningstar was a better take on the same concept). But can you see how having a situation where A) magic is commonplace in a really boring way where you and your opponents use the same magic system B) that magic system is so familiar and predictable it is used for common household applications and C) monsters are so commonplace cities have standardized countermeasures against them D) adventurers are not pioneers and renegades but all part of a mercantile guild with rules etc. etc. etc. leads to a game that has less magic and mystery in it? I bring up magic item shoppes and continual light streets because it is an emblematic example of a way of treating the supernatural as commonplace and mundane in a campaign setting. There's no reason you can't compensate for this in other areas, as you have pointed out.

I agree with this entirely.

And yes, the description was inspired by Eberron. I'm not familiar with Morningstar.

 

[squeen]

I mean, if noone knows if the gods exist, and clerical magic is a matter of faith, and the seals that bind the demons of the first age are crumbling and the secrets for maintaining them are lost, and the underworld is thought to be the body of a great dragon, and its tunnels open up into strange worlds and demiplanes, and the dream masters are trying to transform your society by invading the minds of sleeping leaders, and dragons and fiends are engaged in a secret cold war for control of the Great Prophecy...

If this is Ebberon, then it sounds like some nice meat-and-potatoes homebrewed D&D. Still, I'm not sure if adding household-magic to the mix raises the game, or just makes the delta between these cosmic elements and the starting-point smaller. You are apparently arguing "it's in the noise"...but the 1st level PC is starting "in the noise" (to my way of thinking)---aspiring to become a cosmic player at highest levels. Perhaps you prefer mankind begin closer to the cosmic. That's fine.

Beyond that, wondrous magic items are a great treasure, and a motivator to explore the unknown. Finding them are a big part of my game, and the game I played in my youth. Making them buy-able in civilized regions definitely lessens their worth. That leaves going "out there" just for gold (or "story points"). Again, fine too, if that's your bag.

Ubiquitous magic-as-tech is the definition of Ren Fair (or so I've been told). A slippery-slope towards banality, and I'm not sure it gains you anything. Nothing said so far makes me believe otherwise. But is it instantly lethal to a sustainable campaign?---maybe not. I've personal had some bad experience with it, but that's purely anecdotal. If it works for you/Ebberon...cool.

Is all the wonder of your game derived from contrasting the relative scarcity of the extraordinary?

I think that might be true...what else evokes wonder? Extra-ordinary = outside the ordinary.

 

[TerribleSorcery]

Funny, I was having a conversation about this just the other day in another forum.

The wonder derived from the contrast of magic is not about the presence or absence of magic in common places, but rather the how the magic encountered compares with the already established magical norms of the world.

This is actually a key point, I think. In this conversation, multiple people have offered examples of how a high-magic setting could in fact be wondrous and I notice none of them involve spells that are already in the PHB.

Whatever magitech we're talking about (I have never read Eberron, so I'm going off what others have said here, and a handful of things I've heard in the past) is not boring because it's high magic necessarily - it is boring because it takes what we already know a step in the wrong direction. D&D magic is already toeing the line of being boring! It's borderline science: reliable, transferrable knowledge that works the same way every time. Every CLW heals about the same amount of hit points. Even resurrection works in a manner that can be described in a few paragraphs! Obviously, it has to be this way in order for the game to work - the players need to know what their tactical choices mean. I am in no way objecting to this, nor pointing out anything we don't already know.

But what we must fear doing is pushing it any further in that direction without a really good reason. As far as I can tell, the magic-as-technology settings don't add any interest or excitement to how magic is used. They simply ask "what if we cast all these spells in the book a WHOLE LOT?" Well sorry pal - all of us here can think about that just from reading the PHB. It's cool when I first get a wizard to 11th level and start my own Wall of Iron mine - the first time, anyway. But asking me to buy your campaign setting so you can point this possibility out to me does not count as much of a contribution.

Contrast that with:

I mean, if noone knows if the gods exist, and clerical magic is a matter of faith, and the seals that bind the demons of the first age are crumbling and the secrets for maintaining them are lost, and the underworld is thought to be the body of a great dragon, and its tunnels open up into strange worlds and demiplanes, and the dream masters are trying to transform your society by invading the minds of sleeping leaders, and dragons and fiends are engaged in a secret cold war for control of the Great Prophecy...

I'd play in that setting. This took a DM sitting down and thinking "what kind of cool shit is going in my game?" What I suspect everyone is pointing at with these comments is that it comes down to DM effort. If your magic shop has the the Blade of the Dawn for sale, but only accepts payment in wights' knuckles, fairy wings and vials of mercury, that's a damn sight different from dragging a couple 5-gallon pails of gold through the city streets to buy a sword +3. They are both high-magic item shops, but they function very differently. One can be predicted just from reading the rulebooks, and the other cannot. I think that's what makes it wondrous.

This is a lot of work on the prep side. Since time & effort are finite resources the more magic you have in your setting, the more will naturally be generic. For this reason, low-magic is a hell of a lot easier to handle. You want to come up with a name, history & legends surrounding every goddamned magic item in the inventory of that 12th-level fighter, the guy who goes toe-to-toe with dragons all day? What about all the items in that magic shop (especially knowing the PCs don't have enough money to buy all of them, and some amount of that prep is a guaranteed waste)?

I sure as hell don't. But I could do it for the stuff the party finds in my 1st-6th level game where "+1 or better to hit" is a rare and frightening monster ability.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

And yes, the description was inspired by Eberron. I'm not familiar with Morningstar.

It was a contender for a the new setting wizards was looking for after it worked Forgotten Realms to the bone. It's an interesting concept, taking place in the mythical golden dawn age that every DnD sort of implies, when there is more magical shit going around. It had some intriguing elements and antagonists but the d20 edition Goodman shit out felt like a job half done, and sadly the creator never got around to finishing his 5e conversion.

I think the high-magitech society can be intriguing in theory but most D&D takes place in pseudo-medieval settings that would be irrevocably altered by the inclusion of convenient and ubiquitous magical elements. You can probably get away with the odd court wizard of low levels and stronger ones ruling entire satrapies beyond the borders of civilization but once every baron can afford wands of fireballs and teleportation scrolls you have to wonder why people are still investing in heavy cavalry and fortresses, or why the fucking feudal system is running at all. It's not that it CAN'T be fixed but doing so requires effort.

It's cool when I first get a wizard to 11th level and start my own Wall of Iron mine - the first time, anyway. But asking me to buy your campaign setting so you can point this possibility out to me does not count as much of a contribution.

You have to be very careful. with that. It's like the continual light merchant at 5th level. It's a sort of Fermi Paradox. If a magical economy is possible you must explain why it has not been done before or already exists. My preferred solution would be some sort of magic economical equivalent of Dawn Hunters, some band of magic assholes that have cornered the market and fuck with anyone that tries to get into them without paying exorbitant amounts, or you have to join their stupid guild and do a stupid quest first. That or make veiled mention of 'The Bright City' somewhere under the earth, haunted by hideous phosphorescent mutants glowing bright as suns, and see why men do not use the magical arts in such profusion. It can generate gameplay I guess but limiting the frequency of wizards solves the problem very elegantly.

 

[Beoric]

It was a contender for a the new setting wizards was looking for after it worked Forgotten Realms to the bone.

Is that the contest Eberron won, or a different one?

I have to disagree with @DangerousPuhson, I don't think the "wide" magic like the lightning rail and airships directly contribute to the sense of wonder in Eberron. I think that is why WotC bought it, and I think that is how they sell it, but I actually think Eberron's use of magic accomplishes other things. Unfortunately I am very tired and I am afraid I won't articulate this well (and will probably have to backpedal and rework my ideas when they get challenged), but I think most of the types of adventures that Eberron caters to require a certain level of technology to pull off; it just happens that in Eberron that "technology" is based on low level arcane magic.

For instance, you have the Lovecraftian adventures and the detective adventures, which kind of need a bit of an expanded middle class and a more-modern-than-medieval sensibility to work. Lovecraft requires the protagonists to feel like the world is explained, whereas your average medieval village would expect nothing less than to have evil demons walking the earth. And if you don't think the detective adventure changes if you use a medieval sensibility, read Ellis Peters' Cadfael books.

Then there are the wild west frontier adventures, which kind of need everyone to be slinging a six-shooter or a wand. These adventures just don't work in a feudal setting where 95% of the population are serfs.

The other thing is that adventures take place over the whole world, and message stations, lightning rail and airships make the world a bit smaller. Eberron's major factions are global players; they need to be where the party is, and the party needs to be able to chase them to where they are. And because much of the world is "civilized," to allow those detective, spy, cold war and Lovecraftian adventures to take place, the really wild places are far away. And in this sense lightning rail and airships are a better device than teleportation, because the rail line ends at the frontier, and the airship captain won't fly his ship into the Demon Wastes, the Mournland or Xen'drik. Once you are there, its hexcrawl time!

The whole quori invasion is more science fiction than fantasy, so your simulated late 19th century early 20th century magitech really doesn't change the vibe. In fact, you kind of need the characters to have a certain level of sophistication to appreciate it. Because possession by fiends in a medieval setting is just another adventure about demons; every fiend may as well be a demon or devil from their point of view. Same for the Orwellian nation of Riedra; the loss of freedom to an apparently benevolent totalitarian government only means something if the world expects a level of freedom.

Now for me personally, I run it for the politics and the intrigue, and for character driven adventure elements, which also works better if everyone isn't a serf.

The more I think about it, the problem with magic as technology in a faux-medieval setting has more to do with the broad existence of any form of technology in a medieval setting. Because widely accessible technology is a great equalizer, and a culture that has it isn't likely to stay medieval for very long, and on some level we may all know that.

 

[The1True]

The more I think about it, the problem with magic as technology in a faux-medieval setting has more to do with the broad existence of any form of technology in a medieval setting. Because widely accessible technology is a great equalizer, and a culture that has it isn't likely to stay medieval for very long, and on some level we may all know that.

Right?! How many fantasy novel series have gone straight to hell because of this. I couldn't read Pratchett anymore because I a) grew the fuck up and b) They became more Victorian than medieval fantasy. Abercrombie; I still love the amoral bastards he creates for characters, but for godsakes, 'Red Country' was trying to do cowboys 'n indians with swords and this new trilogy is all about the ravages of early industrialism. Come ON man! I signed up for swords 'n sorcery.
That said, some people absolutely nail it. The Powder Mage series for example. I could RP in that world for sure.

 

[squeen]

@Beoric: I think you've nailed it. Some folks are tried of the medieval pastiche, and want to run other types of games. But you are a long-time D&D gamer. It's different with youngsters seeing D&D fresh. All that LotFP stuff is also targeting a mature, world-weary audience.

For vanilla D&D, pockets of tech in (hidden) Advance Civilizations and Ancient Wonders make it work for me. That's the ill-defined "gonzo" elements, and I'm not ashamed to use them liberally. But I put them ELSEWHERE, not in the starter-village. IMO there needs to be a place of sanity to cleanse the palette and lend contrast.

There's nothing my player love more than to show-off/brag to the local yokels about the wonders they've seen in the Gonzo Underworld.

Of course, the forces of Chaos know what those pockets of Peace and Order are capable of becoming. Civilization is dangerous and threatening in the long-term---mankind's potential is their demise. That why they plot to destroy it in it's infancy.

Bringing it back to ubiquitous magic: I still can't see how it does anything other than raise the baseline and start an inflationary spiral.

Also, I've put stricter limits on continual light and invisibility in my campaign. Currently, a magic-user can only maintain 2 quasi-permanent spells per level---although I'm thinking of adding a 24-hour limit as well (without casting permanency, of course).

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I see the issue here - you're all way too fastidious for D&D.

 

[The1True]

I see the issue here - you're all way too fastidious for D&D.

Dude, you just stuffed the Eberon and Planescape guys in with the classic RP and low-magic grimdark guys all in one shot. Who are you attempting to troll with this? Has it been so long since the last DP pile-on?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I'm speaking to you guys, this particular group of individuals, debating for pages about whether or not too much magic makes things unrealistic in a genre literally defined by being so unrealistic that we call it "fantasy".

Play is unaffected. Your group aren't going to care. There are other ways to generate "wonder" in a game beyond hamstringing the natural proliferation and implications of magic in a feudal system.

I make the comment because you guys are definitely bogged down in details; too nit-picky to cut free a cumbersome light-management system, too worried that players who can buy potions are no longer going to have fun. It's a silly thing to worry about when the focus should be on developing a good story, interesting encounters, amazing places, exciting situations...

 

[squeen]

It's a silly thing to worry about when the focus should be on developing a good story, interesting encounters, amazing places, exciting situations...

It's simply offered as a suggestion on what may help you when "...developing a good story, interesting encounters, amazing places, exciting situations...". A possible pitfall to avoid, that's all. If it's not a rule-of-thumb you choose to follow, it doesn't mean it's not a legitimate caution.

Feel free to ignore.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Is that the contest Eberron won, or a different one?

The very same.

Ebberon was a better fit for D20 then the standard one I think. Dungeonpunk Pulp, a mixture of Doc Savage, H.P. Lovecraft and R.E. Howard i.e. the pulps, with technology replaced with magicpunk. It's not my regular cuppa but it tried to do something different at least.

And now the DP vs DP segment.

I make the comment because you guys are definitely bogged down in details; too nit-picky to cut free a cumbersome light-management system, too worried that players who can buy potions are no longer going to have fun. It's a silly thing to worry about when the focus should be on developing a good story, interesting encounters, amazing places, exciting situations...

This is why I've inadvertently become the OSR iconoclast - taste is 100% subjective, and the OSR has become all about defining the "right" and "wrong" ways to play/design the game based solely on specific tastes.

If the other gentlemen in the chat choose to forgo an excellent opportunity to form an angry mob, I would point them back to the initial question, what caused 2e to suck, I believe there is a case to be made for boring magic making everything feel lame and artifical. Even good Cordell modules, probably the best 2e writer (any other suggestions?) made modules that were good fun but felt a little video gamey.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

My two statements - the idea of not letting your game be defined by the tastes of others, and the idea of not getting overly fixated on the inconsequential - are not contradictory of each other.

"Who cares what everyone else is doing?" and "Don't sweat the small stuff" are two entirely independent adages.

I feel ridiculous for even having to explain this.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

I feel ridiculous

Yes.