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ZeroGear
2019-09-25, 06:28 AM
So, this is a bit of a two-part question.
Imagine a typical fantasy setting where magic is common, and over the course of this world's history the fields of the arcane have flourished to the point where while not every person can learn to cast spells, it's accepted well enough that you can find at least one mage in pretty much every small village. Then, at some point, a Big Bad comes along and conquers everything, establishing him/herself as the undisputed ruler and restructures things to suit their wishes. Now, magic has become much more scarce, as the servants of the Big Bad stamped out any casters that opposed their Lord, and made everyone else part of their church. Stray casters can still be found, but at this point everyone assumes that if someone can cast magic they belong to the Church.

My question in this is:
1) How would you set up a world like this where there is no restriction on character classes, but most casters kinda get the short end of the stick on most social situations?
2) Ho would you run this if you wanted to give your players the freedom to choose any caster class, but didn't want to come off as showing favoritism because either every NPC automatically assumes they work for the Big Bad, or the Church of the Big Bad constantly comes after them because they are a caster?

I'm mostly asking for any experience where you don't want to be a [redacted] to your players, but the world you built makes NPCs act a certain way towards a specific type of character. Also assume that you warned your players about this before they made their characters.

GloatingSwine
2019-09-25, 06:43 AM
Play an Imperial era Star Wars game?

They'll almost certainly have rather a lot of GM guidance for this specific scenario....

Bulhakov
2019-09-25, 07:11 AM
If the players know ahead of the time the consequences of their class choice, let them, but also warn them that development (e.g. learning new spells) may be very difficult. The player will likely have to smartly switch between two strategies - pretending not to be a caster or pretending to be one of the bad guys.

A lot of systems put some limits on the magic in their world, for example the various World of Darkness games let you play Vampires, Mages, Werewolves, with all sorts of powers, but in most scenarios you can't let humans find out the supernatural even exists.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-25, 07:50 AM
You seem to be describing Dark Sun. If you're not familiar with it, once the world was lush and blue (ocean world) then mages ****** up over many millenia, magic having negative side effects that slowly dried up the world - making it first green, then less so, then a burning hell hole of parched desert. This wonderful world is lorded over by Sorcerorkings who have outlawed all magic, with the exception of their own tame, sanctioned casters.

There's propably a link (http://athas.org/) somewhere. Community stuff free of charge.

Draconi Redfir
2019-09-25, 08:55 AM
My question in this is:
1) How would you set up a world like this where there is no restriction on character classes, but most casters kinda get the short end of the stick on most social situations?
2) Ho would you run this if you wanted to give your players the freedom to choose any caster class, but didn't want to come off as showing favoritism because either every NPC automatically assumes they work for the Big Bad, or the Church of the Big Bad constantly comes after them because they are a caster?

i think the easiest method would be to encourage subtle magic play. With Bards for example, you or the player could claim that their "magic" is really just an effect of their music or storytelling. They're not casing "reviving finale" as a spell, pff no. That music was just SO energizing, that it made everyone feel better! If you really want to help your players, you could just make this canon in the game. Bard Magic is not considered magic, but more very skillful playing.

Wizards i'd imagine would be right out though, as they need to not only learn their magic, but spend years learning it. Sorcerers could be more viable though, you might be able to set up a system where if someone wants to play Sorcerer, they get the bloodline and some spells-per day, but otherwise function, and maybe even take levels in a different class that's not magic-focused, all while still leveling up in the sorcerer bloodline. For example someone with the "infernal" bloodline could be a sorcerer by blood, but a fighter by trade, allowing them to use the spells and abilities granted by their sorcerer bloodline a certain number of times per day, while still having viable class abilities in the fighter levels.

Psionic casters would also be viable i believe, as theirs might be more invisible or easier to hide.

Clerics... might need to take some time to think on that. Could one of the party members actually BE a member of the church of the big bad, but who's working with the party because they're not happy, and as such are vouching for the party's favor, and keeping them out of the line of sight of the Big Bad's radar? Or perhaps they resemble more of an Alchemist, and sell off their "spells" as "Miracle elixirs!" where they sell sweetened water mixed with some herbs that people SWEAR can fix their back or whatever, but are mostly placebos, with any real effects being stealthily cast by the cleric from either a distance, or delivered through physical contact when handing over the Elixer.

Just... Stealth spell-casting i think. that seems like the way to go. Bonus points if you can get your players to be creative and each have different methods of hiding or explaining away their magic as not being magic.

Lord Torath
2019-09-25, 08:59 AM
I was also going to suggest Dark Sun as an example of this.

The thing for you to do is to ruthlessly enforce the social rules against the PCs whenever they are in social situations.

The thing for the players of Mages (wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, and whatever other classes are controlled by the BBEG) to do is to give their characters plausible deniability. Disguise themselves as another class, carry a weapon not normally allowed to 'mages' (whether or not they can use it), learn how to cast with making it obvious (Somatic Concealment NWP did this in 2E Dark Sun), and hide anything that proclaims 'mage'.

Is clerical magic still allowed? Psionics? Or are all forms of spellcasting (including psionics) 'forbidden'?

Draconi Redfir
2019-09-25, 09:53 AM
give their characters plausible deniability. Disguise themselves as another class, carry a weapon not normally allowed to 'mages' (whether or not they can use it), learn how to cast with making it obvious (Somatic Concealment NWP did this in 2E Dark Sun), and hide anything that proclaims 'mage'.

this actually reminds me of something i use on my bard.

Try and look for, or make some things such as the Spellsong (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/spellsong/) feat for Pathfinder. it lets the player by RAW disguise their spellcasing as just a bardic performance. So i could be performing in front of a huge crowd while casting a spell and nobody would notice until the spell's effect actually took. If it was an invisible effect such as a charm or dominate person, then nobody would notice until it wore off.

farothel
2019-09-25, 11:20 AM
Warhammer fantasy roleplay has a version of this, where mages are still feared and only sanctioned mages from the orders of magic are allowed to operate in the Empire. Any mage not part of these orders is considered by most to be in league with the ruineous powers and mostly this leads to burning at the stake.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-25, 11:21 AM
This sounds a bit like the Midnight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_(role-playing_game)) setting.

ZeroGear
2019-09-25, 11:46 AM
So, minor response to the ideas:
Thank you for the feedback on how to incorporate bards, and that wasn't something I had thought if. Mostly, I'd see bards as being pretty safe in this instance since they can claim that it's their music or stories, which is pretty much true since the Big Bad would want to focus on the "hard" caster (wizards, sorcerers, clerics, druids) rather than the "soft" casters (bards, rangers, Paladins).

The thing is, I'm more worried about how a player would feel if they wanted to play a mage, and every time they used magic someone would ask "are you a member of the church?", or yell "the church is here! the church is here!" and run away in a panic.
The basic idea is that the Big Bad (and I'm kinda using this term loosely) wiped out all casters that could potentially challenge them, and force-indoctrinated the rest into the ranks of their "religion" (again, using this more as a loose term). As such, casters are all referred to as Priests regardless of their actual class, and also a massive stranglehold on magic. Even "town wizards" are monitored by the church just in case, even if all they so is make potions.
Gods are still worshipped as normal, except that there are no priests dedicated to said gods (and officials from the Church of Big Bad carry out the role if a priest is needed).

My main worry here is that while the world still functions as one might expect, the Church of Big Bad runs the show when it comes to magic, and they are prone to abusing their power. As such, while the citizens still rely on the church, they are not as well liked and even outright feared in some instances. To the average citizen, there is either little difference between a 'rogue caster' and a church priest, or the fear that said caster will bring the church down on them.
I don't really want to tell players "you have to belong to Church of Big Bad if you want to play a caster", or make them feel like a massive liability to the team. I like building worlds, especially scenarios like this. I'm just not sure how to balance access to magic for players if magic's mostly under the purview of the Big Bad.

Draconi Redfir
2019-09-25, 11:54 AM
again then, encourage your players to be cautious and stealthy about their magic. nobody can say "The church is here! the church is here!" when they see the party wizard, if the wizard is dressed up in studded leather armor with a rapier, and threw a "fire bomb" right where that fireball showed up immediately afterwords.

The players may need to suffer some of the arcane spell miss chance taken from wearing heavier armor, but it'd be a small price to pay to be able to cast magic i think.

You just gotta be stealthy with it. If you're going to cast spells, you need to make it not obvious that you're casting spells.

you're not going to be getting your steryotypical casters in this world, that's for sure. No druids walking around covered in leaves, no 70+ year old wizards with staffs and frail bodies, no clerics openly banishing their god's holy symbol, etc. all of those would have been wiped out years ago.

if your players want to play a full-caster, they're going to need to act out a form of natural selection to disguise themselves to show how they've avoided the church's wrath this whole time.

The Wizard as i mentioned, walks around as a traveling alchemist, using pseudo-science to explain his magic. He didn't cast fireball, that was a fire bomb. He didn't cast magic missile, those were painted throwing-stars.

The Druid isn't a tree-hugging hippy in the Forrest, they're an urban hag who lives in a dumpster. She has a pouch filled with rats she unleashes upon her foes, and the uncanny ability to summon stray dogs and cats to the area by throwing treats out into the road. She's haggard and unwashed, no way a homeless woman could perform magic.

The Cleric may swap between a disguise of being a member of the church when it's appropriate, and just being a regular joe when it's not. Perhaps they more resemble a monk, or a blind vagrant who dispenses wisdom and advice to all who ask.

The Sorcerer disguises themselves as a traveling fourtione-teller. They have a deck of cards they use to predict people's futures, if allowed, they could claim the cards themselves are magic, and hold up the "Tower" card while they cast stone-shape, to make it look like the card is the one casting the spell. That way, the cards may be taken away while the sorcerer gets away. Of not, they could settle for more subtle magics, enchantments and illusions, things you wouldn't be able to notice right away.

Willie the Duck
2019-09-25, 12:02 PM
If the players know ahead of the time the consequences of their class choice, let them, but also warn them that development (e.g. learning new spells) may be very difficult. The player will likely have to smartly switch between two strategies - pretending not to be a caster or pretending to be one of the bad guys.

Pretty much. And I can imagine all sorts of fun pretending to be the Powers That Be... despite everyone hating said PTB and having the deal with the actual PTB ... perhaps the run of the mill (maybe even innocent) beat cop coming to the scene where your magical violence went down and just wanting to get your statement and badge # for his files (what do you do?).

If they instead want to play those pretending not to be casters, you should consider making some new rules for that. Default 5e makes that a sorcerer thing (at least the disguised casting), but that might be too constraining. If balance is a concern (especially at low-mid levels), since most casters won't want to use combat cantrips, consider making it easier for them to be supplemental combatants with physical weapons -- give more classes access to reach melee weapons and/or bows (sure they don't need them as opposed to crossbows if they don't have multiple attacks, but otoh it isn't overpowering since they don't, and it would help keep up the disguise). Maybe even consider a SCAGtrip-like thing that boosts damage after level 6, such that they aren't forever stuck with 1d8+dex.

jjordan
2019-09-25, 12:29 PM
So, this is a bit of a two-part question.
Imagine a typical fantasy setting where magic is common, and over the course of this world's history the fields of the arcane have flourished to the point where while not every person can learn to cast spells, it's accepted well enough that you can find at least one mage in pretty much every small village. Then, at some point, a Big Bad comes along and conquers everything, establishing him/herself as the undisputed ruler and restructures things to suit their wishes. Now, magic has become much more scarce, as the servants of the Big Bad stamped out any casters that opposed their Lord, and made everyone else part of their church. Stray casters can still be found, but at this point everyone assumes that if someone can cast magic they belong to the Church.

My question in this is:
1) How would you set up a world like this where there is no restriction on character classes, but most casters kinda get the short end of the stick on most social situations?
2) Ho would you run this if you wanted to give your players the freedom to choose any caster class, but didn't want to come off as showing favoritism because either every NPC automatically assumes they work for the Big Bad, or the Church of the Big Bad constantly comes after them because they are a caster?

I'm mostly asking for any experience where you don't want to be a [redacted] to your players, but the world you built makes NPCs act a certain way towards a specific type of character. Also assume that you warned your players about this before they made their characters.Talk to the players and find out if they're cool with the setting. That's pretty much always step 1. Maybe they say "Cool!" and you're good to go. Maybe they say "Uhhhh...." and you need to re-address the core concepts of the setting.

I like the idea. Maybe you could reduce the scope so that casters are dealt with in different ways in different areas? The church has a iron grip in some areas, influence in others, and no influence at all in some areas? Your casters are only experiencing the effects of the church in some places?

LibraryOgre
2019-09-25, 12:35 PM
A somewhat less sinister version of this is Dragonlance, and the Orders of High Sorcery.

In the setting, there are two or four kinds of wizards; there are Renegades and the Orders of High Sorcery Wizards, who are themselves divided into White, Red, and Black robes, according to their moral alignment. Renegades are hunted by other wizards; you either join the order, practice magic so minor that it doesn't count (1st and 2nd level spells, only), or you die.

Depending on your era, there's other possibilities, too, such as the Kingpriest Era, where being a mage wasn't ILLEGAL, but it was socially awkward.

Other have mentioned Dark Sun, where it is illegal to be a wizard if you're not licensed or outside the big cities, and where much of the magic flows through the Templars... but I don't recall clerics being officially suppressed in there, either.

Altheus
2019-09-26, 03:40 AM
The thing is, I'm more worried about how a player would feel if they wanted to play a mage, and every time they used magic someone would ask "are you a member of the church?", or yell "the church is here! the church is here!" and run away in a panic.


You might say "No wizards in this campaign, they don't exist outside of the church."

Then you could have an inquisition that populate civilized areas and can detect to some degree when and where magic is being used. Have them destroy the building and kill all of the people inside when they find someone harbouring a wizard.

If people still want to play a wizard after this then they are brave, mad, or have a deathwish.

ZeroGear
2019-09-26, 10:32 AM
You might say "No wizards in this campaign, they don't exist outside of the church."

Then you could have an inquisition that populate civilized areas and can detect to some degree when and where magic is being used. Have them destroy the building and kill all of the people inside when they find someone harbouring a wizard.

If people still want to play a wizard after this then they are brave, mad, or have a deathwish.

You might want to re-read both of my previous posts. Saying "No wizards in this campaign, they don't exist outside of the church." is the exact thing I want to avoid doing.
I'm trying to get ideas how to run a campaign in this kind of a setting without causing too much grief to any one player if they choose to play a caster.
So far, a lot of the feedback has been pretty good, and I'm definitely going to check out the sources that were recommended here.

Quertus
2019-09-27, 06:10 AM
The thing is, I'm more worried about how a player would feel if they wanted to play a mage, and every time they used magic someone would ask "are you a member of the church?", or yell "the church is here! the church is here!" and run away in a panic.


So you don't use magic outside your inner circle (ie, the party) in an obvious way, unless you are pretending to be a member of the church, or you aren't leaving witnesses.

Although, my personal favorite response I've seen to this scenario? Travel into the wilderness for a few decades, teaching your trade to orcs or whatever races will appreciate your power. Then come back with an army of both bruisers and tier 1 casters, and exterminate the entire rhabdophobic nation.

LibraryOgre
2019-09-27, 01:04 PM
I am remembering Baldur's Gate 2, where casting any arcane spells outside got you a visit from the Circle.

Onos
2019-09-27, 04:48 PM
The Dragon Age series does a pretty good job of conveying the sort of tone you seem to be aiming for, green Ronin publish a 3d6 system which iirc contains some nice worldbuilding/tone-setting advice if you can get your hands on a copy.

It boils down to casters being very tightly regulated by the church, and greatly feared/hated by the general populace. Rogue casters tend to be seen as even worse (although the opposite is more often true) due to propaganda spread by the church and fear that the military/anti-mage branch of the church will cause trouble hunting said mage.

Depending on the tone of your table a "no witnesses" approach when magic has to be used can be fun though potentially quite dark (though that tends to come with oppressive-regime type settings). A party focused in disguise or wilderness survival can also work great with this sort of game, and if you're saying soft casters are less targeted in your setting a party composed of 1/3 and 1/2 casters could be cool.

Could make for an interesting backstory for a warlock too: making a pact in order to bring back magic to the people or some such.

Luckmann
2019-09-29, 03:18 PM
In my experience, this "issue" is extremely common, depending on game and setting. For example, in WFRPG2, elves are generally considered superior, but it is expressly balanced by the fact that nobody trusts elves. In countless settings, you can play characters that are out of their element, and thus treated with suspicion, such as tieflings or trolls or modrons, or almost any alien in an imperial outpost in Star Wars. Similarly, if you're playing a game set in Thay of the Forgotten Realms, anyone playing a red wizard will naturally have more clout, and anyone pretending to be one would be in a precarious position indeed.

My point being that this should be a non-issue. Make sure your players are aware of the potential issues with any potential characters, and that's that.

Bjarkmundur
2019-10-04, 04:39 AM
My first campaign in 5e had this gimmick. It sucked, since it pretty much meant my players interacted less with the world and its NPCs. So, I don't recommend it. BUT there is a way to salvage it:

The further away from the capital you go the less strict everything is. Let your players start far away and work their way closer to the capital. That way you can establish a status quo (nobody cares who can magic and who can't) and then upset it at the start of the second act when they get close enough that the rules are enforced. They do some magic and a monk stranger drags them into an alley and says "What are you doing! If you are seen doing magic you could be KILLED!". Que exposition.

Setting up a norm and then upsetting it means your players will be much more impacted by the change, so that's how I would do it.

MrSandman
2019-10-04, 04:52 AM
Talk to the players and find out if they're cool with the setting. That's pretty much always step 1. Maybe they say "Cool!" and you're good to go. Maybe they say "Uhhhh...." and you need to re-address the core concepts of the setting.

This.

This pretty much boils down to getting player buy-in. It's as simple as telling them, "Hey, I've been thinking about this sort of game, would it interest you or would you rather do something different?"