Why the desire for low magic?

[Endarire]

Ultimately, the fantasy genre in general is one about magic: Magic locations, magic items, magic creatures, magic spells, and magic situations. Magic is what separates fantasy from other genres like historical fiction, even though other genres may have analogs (superpowers, psionics, etc.)

I understand the point of D&D and Pathfinder being games and systems familiar to many people and I know they're versatile, but at least for me, I'd rather play higher magic in these systems since they're intended to be played with the assumption that magic, at least for PCs, is fairly common. Action RPGs like Diablo were inspired by Monty Haul campaigns with lots of magic items!

To clarify, if you prefer low magic or high magic or middle magic or no magic in your game, that's your preference and go ahead. As previously stated, my preference has been for high magic because, for me, magic in general has been where the fun is.

[Segev]

I think it is in some ways due to a desire that magic and magic items feel wondrous. I think it misguided, but they think rarity will make a +1 sword feel special.

I think a better way to achieve this is to make the world have an understandable system that, like modern technology, requires study and specialized knowledge to understand. Use the old Guild type protections of secrets.

[Doctor Despair]

Some people like the idea of playing low-magic characters without feeling like they're making deliberately suboptimal choices by not playing a full caster

Some people struggle to immerse themselves in a world where any overarching campaign problem should have been solved by a full caster a long time ago (or realistically any problem whatsoever, including world hunger, poverty, disease, etc, unless there are no good full casters in-universe)

[Conradine]

It's fun to change, sometimes. No one wants to eat the same food every day.

[Necroticplague]

1. Versimilitude. Basically, high magic worlds look absolutely nothing like basically any typical fantasy setting due to the power of the magic within the rules. Thus, to have a world that's traditional fantasy instead of more closely resembling Eclipse Phase, you need to dial back the magic. You can either have settings as described, magic as described, or make sense, pick two.

2. Making magic actually feel, y'know, magic. It's not really magical in any useful sense once it starts to become just another tool in the box. This is especially true when it's as easy and predictable as the rules indicate, which drains a lot of mystique from it.

3. To help balance the game's ludicrous bias towards casters.

[lylsyly]

Or perhaps it is simply trying to find a balance between casters and martials that existed in earlier systems that doesn't exist in 3rd edition?????

just my 2 credits, er .... coppers

[AvatarVecna]

Inevitably, the answer always comes back to LotR and Conan.

[the_tick_rules]

cause sometimes people get so caught up in optimizing magical stuff the game turns from having fun to who can stack bonus on bonus better.

[SirNibbles]

Some people like the idea of playing low-magic characters without feeling like they're making deliberately suboptimal choices by not playing a full caster

Some people struggle to immerse themselves in a world where any overarching campaign problem should have been solved by a full caster a long time ago (or realistically any problem whatsoever, including world hunger, poverty, disease, etc, unless there are no good full casters in-universe)

1. Versimilitude. Basically, high magic worlds look absolutely nothing like basically any typical fantasy setting due to the power of the magic within the rules. Thus, to have a world that's traditional fantasy instead of more closely resembling Eclipse Phase, you need to dial back the magic. You can either have settings as described, magic as described, or make sense, pick two.

2. Making magic actually feel, y'know, magic. It's not really magical in any useful sense once it starts to become just another tool in the box. This is especially true when it's as easy and predictable as the rules indicate, which drains a lot of mystique from it.

3. To help balance the game's ludicrous bias towards casters.

I agree with what these two have said, especially in regards to immersion, and have this to add:

1. It's more fun to play in a game where the answer to nearly every problem isn't just magic.

2. If the strongest characters in a world are weaker, the weakest characters become more important. I like the feeling of knowing that any random person on the street can have some role to play.

[AvatarVecna]

2. If the strongest characters in a world are weaker, the weakest characters become more important. I like the feeling of knowing that any random person on the street can have some role to play.

Whereas in normal play, this is also true because the way the world works, it's entirely possible that any commoner you pass on the street spend a few years of his life slowly dealing with a rat infestation in his barn and he's now a demigod from all that XP.

[Silly Name]

Inevitably, the answer always comes back to LotR and Conan.

This, sort of. While it's true that magic is a core component of the Fantasy genre, High Magic type of worlds like the Forgotten Realms are fundamentally different from some of the most popular and defining examples of fantasy fiction.

The powerful Wizards of LotR rarely cast spells, and when they do it's often something subtle or nowhere as spectacular as some of the spells D&D casters use on the regular. Magic is a thing in Conan's world, but it's strange and mysterious.

Even a story focused of magic like A Wizard of Earthsea presents an approach closer to low magic, despite having a wizard school and wizards, witches and sorcerers in abundance. Magic in that world has well-understood rules and a powerful wizard can do incredible things, but they're encouraged to not abuse that power and use it only when strictly necessary. And even with all their might, the wizards are still subject to certain important limitations due to the very rules of magic.

So, in short, lots of people who prefer low or mid magic do so because it's the sort of world that resembles their favourite stories, and they want to play these.

I think it is in some ways due to a desire that magic and magic items feel wondrous. I think it misguided, but they think rarity will make a +1 sword feel special.

I think there's no good way to make a stat-boosting item feel truly special. It's a mechanically useful thing but also very boring: a decanter of endless water or a bag of tricks are infinitely more fascinating than any +X item, even if the +X item ends up being more important.

[Melcar]

Ultimately, the fantasy genre in general is one about magic: Magic locations, magic items, magic creatures, magic spells, and magic situations. Magic is what separates fantasy from other genres like historical fiction, even though other genres may have analogs (superpowers, psionics, etc.)

I understand the point of D&D and Pathfinder being games and systems familiar to many people and I know they're versatile, but at least for me, I'd rather play higher magic in these systems since they're intended to be played with the assumption that magic, at least for PCs, is fairly common. Action RPGs like Diablo were inspired by Monty Haul campaigns with lots of magic items!

To clarify, if you prefer low magic or high magic or middle magic or no magic in your game, that's your preference and go ahead. As previously stated, my preference has been for high magic because, for me, magic in general has been where the fun is.

I can enjoy both types of games myself, but I too prefer high magic... especially if we are playing in faerun!

[Clistenes]

It is difficult to keep your suspension of disbelief when you have a medieval world with high magic... High Magic should change everything, society should be build around the use of magic... I mean Eberron, Ravnica or Ptolus work as a High Magic settings, but your typical medieval-like world would fall apart the moment you add lots of powerful magic users and cheap magic items...

It also feels somehow wrong when there is magic inflation, and characters can't keep themselves competent without carrying several dozens magic items on their bodies...

I mean, as a warrior you will eventually carry Armor +5, a two-handed weapon +5, an Animates Shield, a longbow +5, Mantle of Spell Resistance 21, Belt of Giant's Strength, Gloves of Dexterity +6, Amulet of Health +6, Ring of Freedom, Ring of Evasion, Boots of Speed, Helm of Mind Shielding, a bunch of potions...etc., just to avoid falling behind... and it feels kinda bloated and ridiculous...

[noob]

The reason is simple: they want to play another system but did not realise they wanted that and tries to fit a beautiful clean cube through a duckanvilroper shaped opening.

[Crake]

It's because any sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from technology, and these people want to play in fantasy, not magitech.

[noob]

It's because any sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from technology, and these people want to play in fantasy, not magitech.

Hence my "trying to fit another thing in the dnd system" comment because dnd settings(mysterious magic and npcs often casting blasting spells in the books) and the dnd system(resulting naturally in typyverse due to excessively predictable and easy to access magic) are radically incompatible.

[D+1]

Nothing wrong with enjoying high level play, but survey after survey shows that more people lean away from higher levels. There are likely two reasons for that. First is that campaigns don't last long enough to get into higher levels. Because few people begin games by creating PC's who are already AT higher level, games overwhelmingly begin at 1st level and progress from there. That simply means that the practical reality is that players quit entirely, move, change priorities with how to spend their spare time, the group decides to start over, the DM burns out... there are a zillion reasons why but it's likely that campaigns will die out before reaching higher levels.

The second likely reason is that D&D simply does not function as well at higher levels as it does at low levels, and people CHOOSE to keep it at lower levels. The system works better in the zone below double-digit levels. Look at E6, a very popular variation on 3E. It changes almost nothing about how 3E works - but LEVEL advancement ends at 6th. At lower levels - even across multiple editions of D&D - the system has been played a LOT more, spells are better known, better understood, and more reliable in functioning without needing alterations or house-rules. It's MAGIC that IS THE PROBLEM in this regard. When spells start moving into higher levels (even beginning at 4th and above), the game in general begins to have mechanical issues in dealing with it; the power of the magic being used becomes NON-typical for fantasy fiction, moving from mortal/heroic gameplay into SUPER-heroics.

The issue is that no "btb" version of D&D rules is designed to let you pick ONE tier of power for the game overall and STAY THERE. They are all designed (and always have been) to start with player characters struggling to survive against even small monsters and limited numbers of foes, and NEVER STOP PROGRESSING until the PC's are slaying gods and adventuring across physical planes and even cosmological realities. If most players REALLY wanted to play AT high levels then they never would bother with low levels at all. But they do bother. They play the low-to-mid-levels more often and enjoy it more than they do higher levels. Again, nothing wrong with enjoying high-level gameplay, but D&D does not now and never really has handled that tier of gameplay as well as it does low to mid levels. Players of D&D have always understood that on some level, even if the game designers of various editions never have addressed it (leaving it to the consumer to change or limit the game to their own preferred handling of gameplay).

And that's why the desire for low magic.

[Willie the Duck]

Ultimately, the fantasy genre in general is one about magic: Magic locations, magic items, magic creatures, magic spells, and magic situations. Magic is what separates fantasy from other genres like historical fiction, even though other genres may have analogs (superpowers, psionics, etc.)

I would qualify this. Much of fantasy is really more about magic's consequences upon an otherwise familiar seeming world. Science fiction often gives a purer example, where a given story might actually be 'the real world, but with this one speculative change (backing up minds, altering memories, life extension, ftl travel), let's see what happens,' but fantasy often works in a similar way (albeit often with a broader brush, like 'wizarding schools exist'). Often without the mundanity, the magic becomes meaningless (the Tippyverse is an interesting thought experiment, but I probably wouldn't get engrossed in a story set in it). A story which is really about magic creatures using magic spells and magic items to solve magic situations in magic locations can stifle the drama because the stakes, limitations, and consequences each have to be explained (and often done so by drawing direct parallels to non-magical analogs to make sense) before you know if the protagonist is really in any danger, etc.

I understand the point of D&D and Pathfinder being games and systems familiar to many people and I know they're versatile, but at least for me, I'd rather play higher magic in these systems since they're intended to be played with the assumption that magic, at least for PCs, is fairly common. Action RPGs like Diablo were inspired by Monty Haul campaigns with lots of magic items!

I mean, this is the 3e forum, so 3e assumptions reign. However, bitd, spells were really hard to learn (you found them as treasure and didn't get to choose what you got), were really hard to recuperate after you spent them (re-memorizing spells cost 10 minutes of rest time per spell level, in an era when the 5 minute workday was considered outlandish. Magic items, too, were pretty challenging. Figuring out activation words was not necessarily straightforward, and your entire magic item loadout could be destroyed if you failed a fireball or dragonsbreath save. So if you talk D&D as a whole, these are not universal assumptions one ought make.

Regarding Diablo, I think it is a good example of why a lot of people do not want high magic. Diablo is a fun computer game, but it also is a good example of a 'I blow up enemies to get their stuff which I can loot directly or turn in for cash to buy stuff which makes me better at blowing up enemies until I get bored'-style of game that people may or may not want to be doing.

To clarify, if you prefer low magic or high magic or middle magic or no magic in your game, that's your preference and go ahead. As previously stated, my preference has been for high magic because, for me, magic in general has been where the fun is.

So are you creating a thread to state a preference, as you seem to be doing here, or are we to take the thread title as guidance, and the purpose is to understand why people might want to play in a low magic game?

[Spiderswims]

Low magic is simple, easy and straightforward: Everyone can understand the reality and physics of the game world. It is basically "our Earth". Low magic keeps everything at the level of ''real world" activities. Characters must walk 1,000 miles, not just teleport in .01 seconds.

High magic gives the players way to many powerful options and abilities for many GMs to handle. To have a high magic world, there needs to be a "magic race" to keep things stable. Things like teleport can ruin any plot or story in seconds, the classic "Gandalf could have just teleported to Mt.Doom, tossed the ring in, and ended the whole Lord of the Rings saga in roughly three seconds." (or if you want to stay "true" to the universe, Gandalf could have flown Frodo over to Mt.Doom on the back of a giant eagle and ended the saga in a couple hours).

Making a function high magic world takes a TON of work. The GM has to craft a world that makes sense and blocks the simple things that can ruin the world in seconds. For example having roughly a hundred ways to block teleport, plus another hundred unique ways and another hundred secret ways and so on. The real twist is to make the world that prevents the simple "kid stuff" like scry, teleport and die, but does leave tiny windows that can still be used for players that are willing to immerse themselves in the setting.

And with all that being said, there is the big mechanical shift in D&D over the past couple decades.

In old school D&D players were given a small amount of mundane and magic things each character could do, and then it was up to the player to think way outside the box....and rules...to try to accomplish goals. An example here would be a city covered by a force dome: a player would look for an entry point like an aqueduct or sewer or even the simple 'dig under the dome'...sneak in a citizens...let themselves be caught to be taken inside. The big thing here is the rules take a far backseat to the game play. A player see that rain goes right through the dome, so comes up with the clever idea of walking through the dome soaking wet or even polymorphed into a water elemental and the GM will allow this to work.

The modern D&D is only focused on the game rules and mechanics. Players look at their character sheet and wait to use the specific abilities listed on the character sheet to do the set specific things. So when confronted by the force dome city, the players will be at a loss to do anything unless they have the specific ability "bypass walls of force". And even if the players try to do something, like dig under the dome, the GM will just automatically say it does not work as the players are "not playing the game using the rules" and not "expending limited game resources" to accomplish a goal.


A high magic world needs a ton of homebrew rules and magic. Many GMs and players dislike any homebrew and want to stick with only "what is in the books" too.

[Quertus]

The reason is simple: they want to play another system but did not realise they wanted that and tries to fit a beautiful clean cube through a duckanvilroper shaped opening.

I came here to give several (rather jaded) answers, bit this encapsulates the most important one - and is a great visual, to boot. Kudos!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Weird thought I just had RE making magic more mysterious. You could look at it as an extension/application of Sanderson's First Law:

SANDERSON’S FIRST LAW OF MAGICS: AN AUTHOR’S THE ABILITY TO SOLVE CONFLICT WITH MAGIC IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO HOW WELL THE READER PLAYERS UNDERSTANDS SAID MAGIC.

So if you want to decrease how well the players understand understand magic, making it more mysterious and bringing you closer to a soft-magic system, you need to reduce the power (or at least practicality) of the magic available to players.

[Crake]

And with all that being said, there is the big mechanical shift in D&D over the past couple decades.

In old school D&D players were given a small amount of mundane and magic things each character could do, and then it was up to the player to think way outside the box....and rules...to try to accomplish goals. An example here would be a city covered by a force dome: a player would look for an entry point like an aqueduct or sewer or even the simple 'dig under the dome'...sneak in a citizens...let themselves be caught to be taken inside. The big thing here is the rules take a far backseat to the game play. A player see that rain goes right through the dome, so comes up with the clever idea of walking through the dome soaking wet or even polymorphed into a water elemental and the GM will allow this to work.

The modern D&D is only focused on the game rules and mechanics. Players look at their character sheet and wait to use the specific abilities listed on the character sheet to do the set specific things. So when confronted by the force dome city, the players will be at a loss to do anything unless they have the specific ability "bypass walls of force". And even if the players try to do something, like dig under the dome, the GM will just automatically say it does not work as the players are "not playing the game using the rules" and not "expending limited game resources" to accomplish a goal.

I feel this so badly it hurts.

[Segev]

Weird thought I just had RE making magic more mysterious. You could look at it as an extension/application of Sanderson's First Law:



So if you want to decrease how well the players understand understand magic, making it more mysterious and bringing you closer to a soft-magic system, you need to reduce the power (or at least practicality) of the magic available to players.

I think there’s a hidden point here that’s worth emphasizing: do you mean “low magic” in the sense that even the BBEG having Shatterspike is a true rarity and wealth of magic items? Or do you mean that players can’t access magic, but powerful magics are in the hands of vile creatures they must fight? It seems to me that the latter is often the case.

[Lucas Yew]

And with all that being said, there is the big mechanical shift in D&D over the past couple decades.

In old school D&D players were given a small amount of mundane and magic things each character could do, and then it was up to the player to think way outside the box....and rules...to try to accomplish goals. An example here would be a city covered by a force dome: a player would look for an entry point like an aqueduct or sewer or even the simple 'dig under the dome'...sneak in a citizens...let themselves be caught to be taken inside. The big thing here is the rules take a far backseat to the game play. A player see that rain goes right through the dome, so comes up with the clever idea of walking through the dome soaking wet or even polymorphed into a water elemental and the GM will allow this to work.

The modern D&D is only focused on the game rules and mechanics. Players look at their character sheet and wait to use the specific abilities listed on the character sheet to do the set specific things. So when confronted by the force dome city, the players will be at a loss to do anything unless they have the specific ability "bypass walls of force". And even if the players try to do something, like dig under the dome, the GM will just automatically say it does not work as the players are "not playing the game using the rules" and not "expending limited game resources" to accomplish a goal.

I think the prevalence of those so-called "Organized Play" had a massive role in this change you and others often talk about (although I "personally" love the Rules As Physics idea, so have major psychological turmoil while digesting stuff like different DCs per DMs for same common task(s) over different tables, etc.).

[Crake]

I think the prevalence of those so-called "Organized Play" had a massive role in this change you and others often talk about (although I "personally" love the Rules As Physics idea, so have major psychological turmoil while digesting stuff like different DCs per DMs for same common task(s) over different tables, etc.).

Rules as physics is one thing, I love that plenty, but magic, by it's very nature, is supposed to defy physics, it's not supposed to be quantifyable, turned into mathematical equations and understood like science. If you play it like that it ceases to be magic, and becomes magitech.

[Gruftzwerg]

I prefer to play that what fits the plot.

Because there are things that you can't do when you have high lvl magic at play. Because magic can bypass plot parts, riddles and other obstacles where the DM hopes for some roleplay and some cool ideas the player might pull off.

E.g. a murder chase. For a low magic group without a caster this might be even at higher lvls still a demanding and fun quest. If you have (extreme example) a 20th wizard to solve the same murder chase, it can become to a trivial task of memorizing the right spells and than solving the riddle within a few minutes..

This is why you sometimes might just prefer a low magic scenario. Otherwise the DM has to think about all magical approaches the players might take when designing plot and encounters. This is requires perfect rule knowledge, spell knowledge and common (=cheap) magic items knowledge who could trivialize the plot/encounter. Most DMs don't have that much experience to begin with and thus avoid it after several misdesigned plots/encounters/adventures.

[Anthrowhale]

I don't think this hasn't been mentioned yet, but I enjoy low/no magic for the challenge. It takes some ingenuity for a no/low magic party to overcome published challenges while a similarly optimized high magic party is not challenged.

[Asmotherion]

I kinda like both in their own way.

Sometimes I want to play a partially-omnipotent Wizard who, given the right preparations, can make everything possible.

Other times, I like my Warlock to be a 1-trick ponny in battle and mostly focus in dealing damage with his magic, wile providing more utility options through his invocations. I suppose I like this, as it makes the character more "vulnerable" and makes his point of view more realistic.

On "no magic" on the other hand... I honestly see no appeal in that and would refuse to play in such a campain. To my taste it's boring, 'cause the main reason I love D&D is to role play as a mage.

[King of Nowhere]

Some people struggle to immerse themselves in a world where any overarching campaign problem should have been solved by a full caster a long time ago (or realistically any problem whatsoever, including world hunger, poverty, disease, etc, unless there are no good full casters in-universe)

that kind of stuff only happens if you take all the printed stuff at face value. which seems to be the common assumption here, resulting in a tippyverse, but it's not the case in any table i ever played (granted, they weren't that many). people introduce limitations.
actually, if you accept every printed source, the whole world becomes nonsensical pretty fast.

personally, i have a limitation i really like, tied to worldbuilding:

magic cannot create anything permanent without paying an appropriate cost

A cost that must be in xp or in diamonds. think of it as the thermodinamics of magic.
so, goodbye "traps" of unlimited food/manifactured goods, goodbye infinite steel with wall of iron, or to most other things that can lead to a technological singularity. those things still exhist, but they cannot be mass-produced, and are still expensive to use.

but as an additional point, i would posit that it's impossible to solve all problems, because we humans are too good at making problems. just look at our society. we've never been so rich. the poor in our society are still much better off than the rich 200 years ago. and yet, we did not defeat poverty, and in fact we are struggling with povery issues more than we did in the past. In the past, a man who could eat three times a day was rich. now a man who eats 5 times a day, has access to medical care that would have looked miraculous just decades ago, can read more books than were ever written in the past, has a home with heating and running water and electricity... today, that man is poor.
In the past, almost half of the newborn died of disease before reaching adulthood. we made incredible progress in medicine, to the point that now a single dead child is strange enough to start an investigation. and yet we are putting more and more effort into fighting disease, and it doesn't seem to be making things any better.
as for worldwide hunger, that problem was already "solved" 10000 years ago, with the development of agriculture. food production could be increased manifold over hunting and gathering, there was plenty for all. well, humans just kept reproducing, and in a few generations people were starving again.

You solve a problem, humankind revises its expectations. what was once marvelous, today is normal, and tomorrow will be horrible. and if the solution is really working, then population grow, and then the problems are there again. I'm sure magic would not change that. Not even a tippyverse.
granted, though, it would take a very creative dm to turn this premise into an interesting campaign.

[Talakeal]

I can think of plenty of fantasy stories which have no supernatural elements at all, they are still fantasy. In my experience, most stories rely upon a single “weird thing” to drive the plot and then keep the rest of it as grounded as possible within the setting to to keep the audience grounded and to stop them from getting lost and being unable to visualize or identify with the action.

And no, this is most fantasy, not just LoTR and Conan.


Also, as others have pointed out, magic is supposed to be mysterious and weird. If it is too ubiquitous, predictable, and convenient , it isn't really magic, it is just technology with a different aesthetic.


Take the Diablo example brought up in the OP. Magic items are everywhere, but nothing is magical about it. It is just passive stat boosts, and the game would be no different if instead of labelling them as magical, the stat boosts were the result of the items mundane properties like condition, material, and crafdtmanship.