GM Know Thy Player

I know what you mean; you want a low-magic campaign. (This is why Forgotten Realms always annoyed me--everybody and his sister is a wizard.)
I've often thought of doing just that; I'm not sure how you would allow powerful Merlin-style wizards without having hedgewizards running around all over the place, though Wheel of Time is one idea--Aes Sedai are universally feared and reviled, as is anyone who is known to be able to touch the One True Source. It's a bit like Whitewolf's Mage, really, in that you want to keep your Paradox low--you want to minimize what power you use, and conceal any that you DO.

Call of Cthulhu is another option, ignoring sanity: Spells cost ability damage to cast, which naturally limits your ability to cast. Star Wars is similar, costing your vitality to use the Force as well as providing a very limited pool of Force Points. A Jedi has to take particular feats to even use the Force properly, and even having the ability trained makes him detectable by other Force users.

When examining low-magic paradigms, don't forget GURPS. The GURPS magic system, brilliant in so many ways, offers a simple method for controlling the use of magic: lower the ambient mana level. This makes spells harder to learn and cast, and also severely restricts the amount of power available for big, overpowered spells. Best of all, from the point of view of a GM who wants to limit magic, it makes functional magic items very, very rare.

I find that magic is MOST annoying for the GM in Shadowrun. You plan these wonderful technological traps, security stations, etc, just to find that your mage with improved invisibility can walk through them all without a scratch. And, if that wasn't bad enough, mana attacks can be incredibly deadly to a large amount of people. Without the noise and havoc associated with explosions. Ick. I vowed never to allow magic in the Shadowrun world again. I don't think it needs it, the vast amount of technology creates enough opportunities for the GM and players to use their respective wits.

My friends and I have been using the Grim 'n Gritty rules for DnD. It works really well, but isn't recommended for high magic games. Which is perfect.
So I just made my own world and took magic and fantastical creatures out. I can introduce them anytime I want to, and magic as well, for that matter. When the players do encounter something that is fantastical (like last week when I put them up against some very powerful mummys, which they had to run away from) then they become rightfully scared and awe struck.
It's very rewarding for everyone.

Another low magic setting to consider is Ravenloft's alternate 'Gothic Earth/Mask of the Red Death' world. In that setting every time a person casts any spell, even something as innocuous as healing magic, they risk being jacked into the great evil (the Red Death).

In my latest campaign I limited magic by restricting spell levels. The world pretty much came apart at the seams about six centuries before the PCs arrival as a result of some kind of powerful spell gone wrong, and after the dust settled and civilization began to re-establish itself the mages found that magic would have to be re-discovered almost from the ground up. As it is, the spellbooks are really only filled out up to 5th level. There are some kingdoms that have a good command of some 6th and 7th level magic, but that's spotty and there's nothing higher. Figuring on the distribution recommended by the PH, there aren't that many people who could even USE those spells, since it's still a recovering civilization with small gatherings.

Sorcerers, of course, bring other difficulties to this kind of setup. The innate power and lack of research required can throw a monkey wrench, but I figure that's alright. A PC sorcerer should have some powerful abilities, and the lack of widespread talent especially in the higher levels restricts them from causing more than local havoc.

In a way, the world is transitioning from high to low magic and then back again. Sorcery is becoming more common, with more and more people being born as sorcerers in every generation. Wizardry is stable where it is, but will probably never expand in size very much as more people have minor sorcerous powers.

Personally, I like to keep magical gear restricted by keeping the players relatively poor. The treasures in the DMG are nice, but sometimes I think they're a bit TOO nice. It seems like every encounter is designed to hand the PCs a half ton of cash, and I've found that modifying them early on is a good way to keep the party from getting magicked up. My current PCs recieved their first magical weapons as part of a quest because their backer knew that they would need them. They didn't have a chance to upgrade them until 9th level, at which point they nearly bankrupted themselves and only managed a few modest upgrades. At this point they each had somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 gold pieces, which if you go by the list prices in the DMG isn't going to take you very far...especially when you have multiple weapon types to consider as well as multiple pieces of armor, and the ever handy wondrous item or two. The thing I consider here is that going by the list prices most of the common folk couldn't dream of affording magical items. It would take a year or two's saved pay to buy even a minor healing potion, and items are even worse. The only ones who have convenient access to them are the nobility and adventuring classes.

I think that in order to lower the MQ (magic quotient) of a world significantly you have to impact the gods, either by weakening, removing, or distancing them from the players. Being able to freely draw on the power of Gods can give parties with a cleric a powerful fallback, and there's an entire power center there that shapes the society.

In my campaign, I removed the Gods entirely. If there are Gods on this world, they aren't exactly talking to anybody. The magic that transformed the place and created the elves, dwarves, orcs, and a few other races also thinned the barriers of reality in a few places, allowing select creatures of the Good and Evil subtype to come through...although the Good type don't like to act directly, and prefer to aid mortals in fighting on their own. What I did was gave the wizards and sorcerers access to the healing spheres...a double edged sword at best. I think it balances out, however, as the wizard's need to prepare his spells ahead of time forces him into either preparing as a healer or preparing for other things. A sorcerer could get nasty with their spells per day, but the opportunity cost in giving up those precious, precious spell slots for healing spells is enough to balance that out pretty well.

I'm probably doing this campaign as a 4-5 parter...the first part, which the PCs are nearing the final quarter of now, introduces the world and sets up a few things. In the next portion, some 25 years later, I'm going to make them all roll new PCs and they'll have to deal with one of the old PCs leading an invading horde to take over the world as they know it. The odds are stacked against them, so I don't expect them to succeed...for one thing, I'm pulling a trick from this site and having the player who's old PC is running the show play a spy on the inside of this group. When the time comes, he'll stab them in the back.

The power behind the Horde is going to be an NPC wizard of mine that in a way I'm modeling after the Dominator of Glen Cook's stories, or the villain in Micheal Stackpole's Dragon Crown series...an enchanter of fearsome power who bends others to his will and uses them to accomplish his aims. They will probably manage to strip him of his powers, but that opens up another can of worms...

I mentioned before that in this world the non-human racers were unnaturally created. I decided when I did this that the first generation of Elves were changed into immortals. Combine human drive and immortal lifespans, and within around 7-8 centuries you might very well have individuals with delusions of Godhood and the power to make the delusion stick until it pretty much worked. The next part would be focused on forcing them out of the world and letting mankind have a destiny.

After that, it should all end up with a world where low level magic is quite common (almost all commoners having access to some cantrips) but where the high level stuff is relegated to serious practictioners, and any contact with beings who are close to Gods requires powerful divination spells. I don't know what will happen in that world, but it could be interesting.

My problem for a while was like yours, but the opposite end of the spectrum. I _hate_ spell lists. Where's the magic in doing the same thing over and over?

I tweaked with some D6 rules and made a Mage-like fantasy system. Kinda the reverse of your problem, but hey, I like to hawk it ;)

I have a different approach to this. I, as well, don't like a gamne where magic saturates the world, unless it's Mage but that the point of the game. This approach is very simple and I use it with any fantasy game, like D&D and Shadowrun.

All I do is keep a close eye on what I give to the characters for magic items and what they can purchase and ask to limit the number of magic users to one in the party. In Shadowrun there are numerous non magical security devices that will stop any magic in it's tracks. The 3rd Ed book Magic In The Shadows discusses them, one is a vine, much like ivy, that is inpenetrable to magic and the other is a microbe that alot of corps will pint their walls with to alert security systems to magical presence and spells.

As an example of this high fantasy, low magic game is my current D&D game. I know I've been going off about this alot lately. The characters are all 16th level now, they started at 10th, and have very little magic amongst them. The elven ranger has a magical bow, the halfling sorcerer has a Ring Of Sustenence and the elven thief has 2 +2 Rapiers and a set of magical lockpicks that give a +10 bonus to lockpick rolls, she stole those from an assassin lord who is now hunting the party down to get them back. The game even takes place in an isolated corner of the Forgotten Realms. I thinbk it still allowes for the cool high fantasy without putting a mage on every street corner. the big threat of the campaign is a red dragon that has an army of humanoids. The army has no magic, not even clerical and they're still romping across the countryside due to a higher tech level and superior numbers.

My point, which I think I kind of got away from, is that you needn't alter the rules, which does work, in order to alter the magic level of a game.

Heh, I have played a low level / low magic campaign for years. I find it by far the most enjoyable kind of D&D.

Of course, if you have low level characters you have to ensure that they don't die too easily, so I tweak it to give them hagher than average hit points for the first 3 levels.

I took part in a high level high magic campaign once, and it was ok, fun, but I couldn't take it seriously. Nothing was too tough to kill in the end. We gated into hell once and slaughtered Asmodeus and his demon hordes. The higher level you go the more insignificant the campaign becomes.

I am a great believer in campaign integrity. You must respect the campaign, which means you must fear the campaign to some extent.

To the unidentified person who made the last post above,

Yeah I agree with you that mid level is best. Thats what I meant really. My players typically spend around 5 to six sessions getting to third level, they spend the majority of their careers at 4th to say 9th level, and If they ever get to 10th level or higher, then they are among the highest level pcs or npcs in the campaign. With the exception of some legendary figures.

I slightly disagree with you on how dangerous the game should be. Fear and respect of the campaign are necessary, but I would consider it harsh indeed to wipe out half a party unless they had done something very stupid. Similarly I avoid devices such as critical hits and assassination rolls, because they work against what I consider the fundamental principles that characters are exceptional heroes, and hard to kill. I'm talking D&D now. Other games like TRAVELLER, are designed with more realistic rules, and the character can be blown away with one shot, but thats a different kind of game.

In fact, because low to mid level characters are so vulnerable, I give them enhanced hit points for the first three levels.

When I spoke of respect and a little fear, I don't mean to the point of continually wiping out groups. The level of my game is very similiar to Mohammed's. Getting to 3rd or 4th level takes 3 - 5 sessions and gives some survivability in a difficult encounter. 5th - 7th level are veteran characters, 8th+ heroes and 10th+ are rare and epic.

My intention is not to constantly have the characters running for their lives, but just enough mortality that they respect the world and dangerous situations so that they NEVER think, 'oh he won't kill my character at this time'. Characters have died to

::: bad judgement (jumping of a ledge, not realizing it's a 100' drop),

::: very bad luck (enough '1's so the character knocks himself unconscious against a tree and gets eaten by ogres),

::: other players incompetance (Archer shoots his own warrior/friend in the back while trying to hit enemy - happened a few times).

So what does this accomplish? I mean, every character rolled up takes times and effort which is wasted when the character dies. Also it can discourage the player. Also disrupt a storyline. Why not keep him alive, even if it means 'fudging' a few rolls?

So what is accomplished by a character getting killed, especially in a sometimes tragic, comic way? Well, players take creature encounters more seriously. Nobody justs laughs off a small group of ogres or even orcs. Surviving a difficult encounter means more to the players, giving them a sense of accomplishment, having seen others die in a similiar situation. When the GM is trying to generate a serious encounter and someone starts screwing around (distracted, bored, kabitizing) the other players enforce discipline because they've seen disaster occur previously.

I (like most GMs) put alot of work into my game. Creating the world and cast of characters, current storyline and background history. I want players that play it and appreciate it the way I run it. So far it's worked out very well.

By the way, in my previous post (7 posts above) I mentioned 2 characters killed in a troll encounter. The players were playing new characters within 15 minutes (I either carry generics or they use a blank sheet) and will flesh out the character before the next game, and they are already enthusiastic about their new characters. They know characters die and accept they died in a great battle, and everyone else acknowledges their sacrifice, because it has happened to them to.

Characters may live and die but the story continues.

Once again, way to go Chillax. Thanks all for listening.

You've already pretty muched your real problem - you're using D20 and D&D. There are plenty of GOOD systems when it comes to handling magic out there, why settle for the crap of mass marketing schlock that Hasbro is publishing?

Get Ars Magica (not the d20 version) or GURPS or Hero v5 or RQ3 or Unknown Armies, if you want interesting and magical feeling magic instead of "Fireball X".

Stop handing out magic items left right and center. Leave magic something the mages have, not every flunky that comes aong.

Use your imagination a bit. As a thief, one has a lot of options for sneakiness, deception and misdirection (as do some mages) rather then frontal assaults and artillary barrages. Ever rob a dragon with just a herd of sheep and a bag of holding as your tools?

For that matter, encourage Mages to be more effective with less. Give out experience awards for the most clever or interesting use a of low level/low power spell. Who needs Lightning Strikes and Fireballs when you can be effective with a Grease Spell, a Simple Invisibility on a stretched rope or an unusual application of darkness spells in combination with pits or hidden snares?

err... that last post was from me . somehow I left the name out

Magic in a campaign is usually not a problem, provided that it is kept as magic and not as technology. Mages (with the exception of PC mages) should be fairly rare, and very expensive. The average or even wealthy merchant cannot hire the services of a mage to regularly booby-trap his domicile or protect his caravans. Discourage dime-a-dozen spell casters.

I also do not, ever, have magical items for sale in the markets. If you reduce magic to a commodity, rather than an element of fantasy, your players will quickly forget just how 'cool' it is in the context of a campaign. I really dislike the idea of going down to the market to pick up a warhorse, some new armour, a dozen strength spells on a scroll and a flametongue.

Clerical magic is not quite as wrought with difficulty in 2nd edition, as it is mostly after-the-action support, rather than the pre-buying that crops up with mage magic.

However, that is what works in my current campaign, and may or may not work for yours.

Best Wishes,
The Reverend Shayne Dark