How do you defend against magic? The short answers almost always comes up... Anti-magic fields/zones and counterspells/Dispel Magic.
The thing is... those... pseudo active forms of defense. The former has a duration, stops your own beneficial magics, and is a limited area of effect spell while the latter requires not only a caster to be present but also to see the spell being cast and also, depending on the ruleset, cast a similar spell (or spell level) to neutralize it.
Now both of these actually require a spell caster to stop. Only the dispel magic line of spells actually address a huge disadvantage that any GM trying to challenge a party... or conversely a party trying to protect against NPCs... magic items.
See, a good deal of this stems from the fact that players, particularly my own, are very paranoid people. Despite the fact that I enjoy and encourage over the top heroics and daring, I have a reputation with my players of being a bit mean. This is a bit unfounded. I do punish stupidity and charging in blindly but I don't punish heroics.
What this means is that they are overly paranoid of the concept of Scry and Die or variations of it. Constantly looking over their shoulder in a fashion that only usually gets seen in Shadowrun or Cyberpunk players. Warded against all forms of remote detection and viewing. They are afraid of squads of people showing up in the middle of the night and killing them all. They are afraid of the wizard who will appear out of nowhere and slay them all while flying and invisible.
Mind you, they won't mind it at all if they do it. But because of the Player/GM arms race... they are literally terrified of the day I return the favor. I won't... its not ultimately fair or conductive to the continuation of the campaign's story. They are convinced though that at any moment, I am going to swoop in with elite NPCs and slaughter them all.
Not unless my story benefits. Sorry. It is one thing to kill the characters or the whole party due to the luck of the dice during a climactic battle or they were stupid and charged straight in on the dragon on their own volition. It is a complete other to merely slit their throats without it meaning something. It is why I am not a fan of the random encounter. Random encounters lead to random damage and thus to meaningless deaths. But that is a topic for another day.
No, the crux of this once divorced of my player's paranoia is my own paranoia as a GM. How do I stop the spell casters?
It is a pretty well accepted concept that a properly prepared mage is like Batman if given prep time. A well run party is like a whole slew of Batmans in tandem. Watch what a cleric, a mage, and a bard can do to buff a rogue and warrior sometime and be amazed.
Now... to ask the question that every Batman villain asks himself... How do you stop Batman?
If your villain is in a central location... be it Mt Doom or just a simple evil castle... and directing his legions of darkness, what keeps him safe from the party? Besides the level problem... according to rules... nothing actually.
Now, if you are running it entirely as a dungeon crawl game... congrats, you don't have my problem. Your players are programmed to think in simple squares and I envy you. I don't have that luxury... I have unwittingly trained a whole slew of gamers who don't think 'inside the box' so to speak.
To them, the world is open... the villains move according to their plans and agendas. If the players deign themselves interested enough to interfere with the villains, the villains will notice and adjust accordingly to the delays and setbacks inflicted upon them by the players. The retaliation is often in kind.
To my players, major attacks are conducted like military operations. They will recon the area, take out as many guards as possible quietly to soften up the area, and then strike heavy and hard towards the perceived target. It is not always successful. But it is effective.
The problem is... how do you challenge a group like this? There is the traditional monster... blargh! I be scary or odd or unknown... the monster from obscure manual 34B page 12 is interesting and it works well for dungeons... but not if your villain is say... a local corrupt noble who has human guards.
What about traps you say! Of course! Traps! Ask yourself this... would you trap your living room? While you were still living in your house? Would you trap the hallway to the bathroom? The answer to these usually should be... no. Why? Because not only do you live there... so do others... who don't know of your traps. You don't want to hurt your friends.
Now, some of you might actually be complete and total shut ins who are completely anti-social and have no guests. To you, the idea of trapping ever 5 feet of your home sounds logical. But say you actually did have friends and family and loved ones... I know... venturing into Fantasy territory here... or employees or guards. No... you might trap a vault... but that is now just a deterrent against rogues and spies... not parties. No... traps are not a solution.
I'll get down to this more later...
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
It all started with a spark...
For our classic traditional high fantasy world, we have to assume that we are living in the ruins of a greater empire that dominated in the past, beyond living memory of all but the longest lived of races. Considering high fantasy is often pseudo-european... we are going to assume it will be roman like though we can easily supplant the glories of Rome with any culture really. No matter though... we are living in a period of darkness and fear and ignorance. We don't know what lives in the shadows... in the woods and in the mountains.
Not only do we have the barbarians who sacked and destroyed the old empire... there are countless monsters. After all, we have books upon books of them. Some come from higher or lower planes of existence... who consider mortal life to be a bug under their feet, barely registering that we even exist. The gods barely do much to influence or stop these threats. After all, they are some of the beings who exist on a higher dimension... they are mysterious and powerful.
Mighty knights and adventurers proceed out into the ruins of the fallen empire, looting the remains of past glories. Perhaps they are fighting an enemy who has come into a weapon or item of great power, a remnant of the true power wielded by the previous age. There is always the next massive invasion of barbarians... I mean... orcs and their ilk who threaten the tentative thread of civilization upon which it hangs. Someone is out trying to summon a higher being to our own level of reality again.
These are the various common filaments that fill high fantasy. This is the fuel that has run countless games in both paper and electronic form. It also is so very limiting.
It only begins to appear though as such when you start to run longer games. When you are playing a new game... everything is so new... so much of the map is still unfilled. Here there be dragons still rings true. But what happens if the world survives your plot and the heroes defeat the dark lord of the mountain of black death and the legions of the twilight god? What if the world actually manages to move forward a century or two? Does it STAY locked in the realm of high fantasy?
Well... to some designers... the answer is yes. Some details might change... but there will still be the lords of realm, knights, baronies, the overly superstitious nature of religion, and the people still being locked in awe of magical items and spells. Take a look at Forgotten Realms. Take a good long look at it. Open up its histories. They have a recorded history that blows our own recorded history out of the water... yet they still are locked perpetually in high fantasy era. Lord of the Rings doesn't get away either.
No... there is always a magical apocalypse on the horizon or a war of the gods that resets it back to being stupidly locked in this era of mindset. At no point does it actually ever improve for ANYONE. It is counter productive but hey, it leaves the world constantly ready for the next wave of generic adventurers to sally forth from Minas Tirith, Waterdeep, or Stormwind and fight the next great dragon or army of evil.
Who can fix this? Who can stop this endless cycle? Who can affix the lantern of knowledge to the highest tower and drive away the darkness?
It sure is not the cleric, he is too locked in the trappings and prayers of his deity of choice... unless he is one of the rare clerics of a god of knowledge... but they are useless for the most part.
It is not the fighter, he is a brute for the most part and most of the time can not grasp the higher concepts of civilization and economics. Problems are solved with power and physical strength.
The Druid? He would be happier seeing the world turn back to a wild place.
The Sorcerer? Oh no, he was born with power in his veins. He can't teach that. He is a greedy bastard who shapes with his mind and does not truly understand what he is doing... since it is all second nature to him.
The Bard? Maybe... if he is smart enough and realizes he can actually shape and direct a people. They are great organizers.
Monks? No... their belly button lint is too interesting. They focus on the self. Meditation and purification of the body. But their advice can help people but not nearly as much as they would like. Only if they actually try to direct society like Confucius or promote true Taoism... they are not going to do it.
The ranger? The barbarian? Look at our druid and you will understand.
The Paladin? He is happier with the status quo and has too much invested in the mindset of the cleric. He is enslaved to the mindset of the deity he worships to be of ANY use outside of being a better equipped protector.
The rogue? He is like the bard and monk... if his mind is sharp enough and his tongue made of silver... he might be able to do something.
There are always exceptional people in these classes that can be uplifting but they always do so with the help of people who think outside of the box, who are free and above the powers of the world. They turn to one group and one group alone... a group capable of doing everything that they wish they could.
They turn to the mage. The wizard. The heretic who controls powers that defy gods, who understand the very equations that make the invisible gears of the universe turn. Yes, they don't have the ability to just conjure up fire at a whim like those mutant blooded bastard sorcerers or channel the powers of outsiders like a cleric but they alone have dissected magic down to equations and formula. A pinch of this... a dash of that... and stir under this temperature till done... and you have directed the flows of magic to do what you desire.
In the fantasy world, these people are alchemists and guardians of a mostly forgotten lore. So much is always assumed to have been lost and it is assumed that the wizard and his ilk are clinging to the scattered remnants what survived the fall of the previous ages. They don't understand fully what they are dealing with...
Which makes what they do even more impressive.
After all, using scattered chunks of knowledge... they can call forth beasts and more from the outer realms, ignite flame with a snap of the finger, shatter stone, create illusions that all can see, identify somethings true nature, and at their apex of power... wish something into being... in essence... force reality to bend to their will. And this is with what little they still have. Imagine what they could do if they bothered to actually improve upon it.
Everyone who plays D&D knows of the lich. Every mage player has always wanted to BE one. Why? I am a wizard who gets to live forever! Right! Why live forever though? Oh, so I can become an even more powerful mage. Alright. Our settings provided to us usually have one or two extremely powerful liches out there. Some hundreds of years old. Yet they still play by the rules and cast the same spells that mortal mages do. Their items are not better than what a hero might carry. Despite that there are rules for making better spells. They have not done much with their power.
Kel'Thuzad... you get a pass on this one. You were a successful lich in the whole 5 or so years you got to run around and do things in your setting. You actually DID something with all that power.
No... we must assume now that all initial NPC mages and liches and clerics and deities are... unambitious. They are not looking towards the future. They are not invested in the idea of progressing forward a society and only in maintaining a status quo in which they are on top and everyone is left in the dust and mud below them.
Something needs to set the spark that will burn away the old world and bring about a new age.
The world needs a wizard who actually wants progress... or a non-caster who has the vision to ask a mage to do so. Like I said, we can't ask a cleric to do it... he has to go then and ask his deity who might say no for some mystical reason and give a bullshit answer as to why. The sorcerer is actually limited in what all he can do... he only has so many tricks that his limited blood can bring forth. He is worthless. Once he dies... his tricks die with him. Nothing lasting. Nothing worth it. At most... we can use the sorcerer as a foot soldier or a specialized tool... use it till it breaks and discard it. Train him and send him off.
No, the wizard is the key to a better world. His perception of the world, his attention to detail, is everything. His mind is worth so much more than anyone else is.
The only people who rival the wizard in usefulness are inventors and scientists... and occasionally a bard who actually focuses on knowledge and studies and people instead of silly fucking music or brandishing a sword. After all, everyone needs to have a walking library of lore to draw upon. They are perfect assistants. Too bad we are stuck trying to change the world within the rules and outside of going to third party books... inventors, engineers, scientists, and the ilk are unavailable...
until of course... our wizardry origins allow us to.
Not only do we have the barbarians who sacked and destroyed the old empire... there are countless monsters. After all, we have books upon books of them. Some come from higher or lower planes of existence... who consider mortal life to be a bug under their feet, barely registering that we even exist. The gods barely do much to influence or stop these threats. After all, they are some of the beings who exist on a higher dimension... they are mysterious and powerful.
Mighty knights and adventurers proceed out into the ruins of the fallen empire, looting the remains of past glories. Perhaps they are fighting an enemy who has come into a weapon or item of great power, a remnant of the true power wielded by the previous age. There is always the next massive invasion of barbarians... I mean... orcs and their ilk who threaten the tentative thread of civilization upon which it hangs. Someone is out trying to summon a higher being to our own level of reality again.
These are the various common filaments that fill high fantasy. This is the fuel that has run countless games in both paper and electronic form. It also is so very limiting.
It only begins to appear though as such when you start to run longer games. When you are playing a new game... everything is so new... so much of the map is still unfilled. Here there be dragons still rings true. But what happens if the world survives your plot and the heroes defeat the dark lord of the mountain of black death and the legions of the twilight god? What if the world actually manages to move forward a century or two? Does it STAY locked in the realm of high fantasy?
Well... to some designers... the answer is yes. Some details might change... but there will still be the lords of realm, knights, baronies, the overly superstitious nature of religion, and the people still being locked in awe of magical items and spells. Take a look at Forgotten Realms. Take a good long look at it. Open up its histories. They have a recorded history that blows our own recorded history out of the water... yet they still are locked perpetually in high fantasy era. Lord of the Rings doesn't get away either.
No... there is always a magical apocalypse on the horizon or a war of the gods that resets it back to being stupidly locked in this era of mindset. At no point does it actually ever improve for ANYONE. It is counter productive but hey, it leaves the world constantly ready for the next wave of generic adventurers to sally forth from Minas Tirith, Waterdeep, or Stormwind and fight the next great dragon or army of evil.
Who can fix this? Who can stop this endless cycle? Who can affix the lantern of knowledge to the highest tower and drive away the darkness?
It sure is not the cleric, he is too locked in the trappings and prayers of his deity of choice... unless he is one of the rare clerics of a god of knowledge... but they are useless for the most part.
It is not the fighter, he is a brute for the most part and most of the time can not grasp the higher concepts of civilization and economics. Problems are solved with power and physical strength.
The Druid? He would be happier seeing the world turn back to a wild place.
The Sorcerer? Oh no, he was born with power in his veins. He can't teach that. He is a greedy bastard who shapes with his mind and does not truly understand what he is doing... since it is all second nature to him.
The Bard? Maybe... if he is smart enough and realizes he can actually shape and direct a people. They are great organizers.
Monks? No... their belly button lint is too interesting. They focus on the self. Meditation and purification of the body. But their advice can help people but not nearly as much as they would like. Only if they actually try to direct society like Confucius or promote true Taoism... they are not going to do it.
The ranger? The barbarian? Look at our druid and you will understand.
The Paladin? He is happier with the status quo and has too much invested in the mindset of the cleric. He is enslaved to the mindset of the deity he worships to be of ANY use outside of being a better equipped protector.
The rogue? He is like the bard and monk... if his mind is sharp enough and his tongue made of silver... he might be able to do something.
There are always exceptional people in these classes that can be uplifting but they always do so with the help of people who think outside of the box, who are free and above the powers of the world. They turn to one group and one group alone... a group capable of doing everything that they wish they could.
They turn to the mage. The wizard. The heretic who controls powers that defy gods, who understand the very equations that make the invisible gears of the universe turn. Yes, they don't have the ability to just conjure up fire at a whim like those mutant blooded bastard sorcerers or channel the powers of outsiders like a cleric but they alone have dissected magic down to equations and formula. A pinch of this... a dash of that... and stir under this temperature till done... and you have directed the flows of magic to do what you desire.
In the fantasy world, these people are alchemists and guardians of a mostly forgotten lore. So much is always assumed to have been lost and it is assumed that the wizard and his ilk are clinging to the scattered remnants what survived the fall of the previous ages. They don't understand fully what they are dealing with...
Which makes what they do even more impressive.
After all, using scattered chunks of knowledge... they can call forth beasts and more from the outer realms, ignite flame with a snap of the finger, shatter stone, create illusions that all can see, identify somethings true nature, and at their apex of power... wish something into being... in essence... force reality to bend to their will. And this is with what little they still have. Imagine what they could do if they bothered to actually improve upon it.
Everyone who plays D&D knows of the lich. Every mage player has always wanted to BE one. Why? I am a wizard who gets to live forever! Right! Why live forever though? Oh, so I can become an even more powerful mage. Alright. Our settings provided to us usually have one or two extremely powerful liches out there. Some hundreds of years old. Yet they still play by the rules and cast the same spells that mortal mages do. Their items are not better than what a hero might carry. Despite that there are rules for making better spells. They have not done much with their power.
Kel'Thuzad... you get a pass on this one. You were a successful lich in the whole 5 or so years you got to run around and do things in your setting. You actually DID something with all that power.
No... we must assume now that all initial NPC mages and liches and clerics and deities are... unambitious. They are not looking towards the future. They are not invested in the idea of progressing forward a society and only in maintaining a status quo in which they are on top and everyone is left in the dust and mud below them.
Something needs to set the spark that will burn away the old world and bring about a new age.
The world needs a wizard who actually wants progress... or a non-caster who has the vision to ask a mage to do so. Like I said, we can't ask a cleric to do it... he has to go then and ask his deity who might say no for some mystical reason and give a bullshit answer as to why. The sorcerer is actually limited in what all he can do... he only has so many tricks that his limited blood can bring forth. He is worthless. Once he dies... his tricks die with him. Nothing lasting. Nothing worth it. At most... we can use the sorcerer as a foot soldier or a specialized tool... use it till it breaks and discard it. Train him and send him off.
No, the wizard is the key to a better world. His perception of the world, his attention to detail, is everything. His mind is worth so much more than anyone else is.
The only people who rival the wizard in usefulness are inventors and scientists... and occasionally a bard who actually focuses on knowledge and studies and people instead of silly fucking music or brandishing a sword. After all, everyone needs to have a walking library of lore to draw upon. They are perfect assistants. Too bad we are stuck trying to change the world within the rules and outside of going to third party books... inventors, engineers, scientists, and the ilk are unavailable...
until of course... our wizardry origins allow us to.
And so it begins...
Alright... I think I have gotten a good view of the basics on how magic COULD be viewed...
You see, I think a major problem with how I think is that I made the mistake of actually reading things outside of D&D and thinking of how it could be adapted. I have also had a good deal of players who constantly challenge the borders of the box, pushing the limits and seeing what they can do. Though not so much anymore, they used to love the concept of constantly researching new spells and magic to either enhance or modify existing spells or break new ground.
I have seen the wonders of Mage: The Ascension and all its capabilities. Infact... its fluff is what made my mind wander and dance the most. Namely the Technocracy and the more technological oriented magical disciplines. Oh, I enjoyed the traditionalists a great deal... I won't pass up a chance to play an Order of Hermes mage... they are the quintessential D&D mage in that system. I do so enjoy lighting things on fire occasionally.
But the thing is... the Hermetic mages... the traditionalists... never advance. Why should they? They already can do so very much with the wiggle of a finger and a thought. Their focus is a small wand or a gem and they can do wonders! Its the appeal of magic.
Its also very greedy. Ooooh sure, there are the Gandalfs and the Elminsters who decide to come down from on high to interact with the non-magical folk and help but for the most part... they are just shepherds to all the non-magical people. After all, they wield powers that rival deities. Clerics are not much better here... but I will get to my hatred of why clerics shouldn't be doing what they do in a later post... right now, I am focused on the wizardry world.
No, these people barely actually help to change the world that they are in... if you assume that they exist within the framework of the pseudo-medieval setting that is the stock worlds of Dungeons and Dragons or High Fantasy in general. There are various weak reasons why they have not taken over... Templars, Laws of Magic enforced by overly traditionalist mages, 'the church', a deity of magic who is being obstinate... the reasons are countless on how we are stuck in a traditional High Fantasy world instead of something far more fantastic.
So... we are going to start here... in the world of high fantasy... and start to look at just how magic can actually improve or change a setting so completely and yet still arrive at a world that we can relate to. Finally, we are arriving at a point where the title of this blog finally gets to come into play. How does a society actually adapt and change to reflect powers that magic has over it? How do people come to grips with something that is a force upon the universe once the veil of mystery and the arcane get strips away? What happens to magic once logic and the serious eyes of the educated get turned to it?
Can the traditional mage and the church survive in a world where words like heresy and mystery have been dispelled like a shadow under the light of a lantern?
You see, I think a major problem with how I think is that I made the mistake of actually reading things outside of D&D and thinking of how it could be adapted. I have also had a good deal of players who constantly challenge the borders of the box, pushing the limits and seeing what they can do. Though not so much anymore, they used to love the concept of constantly researching new spells and magic to either enhance or modify existing spells or break new ground.
I have seen the wonders of Mage: The Ascension and all its capabilities. Infact... its fluff is what made my mind wander and dance the most. Namely the Technocracy and the more technological oriented magical disciplines. Oh, I enjoyed the traditionalists a great deal... I won't pass up a chance to play an Order of Hermes mage... they are the quintessential D&D mage in that system. I do so enjoy lighting things on fire occasionally.
But the thing is... the Hermetic mages... the traditionalists... never advance. Why should they? They already can do so very much with the wiggle of a finger and a thought. Their focus is a small wand or a gem and they can do wonders! Its the appeal of magic.
Its also very greedy. Ooooh sure, there are the Gandalfs and the Elminsters who decide to come down from on high to interact with the non-magical folk and help but for the most part... they are just shepherds to all the non-magical people. After all, they wield powers that rival deities. Clerics are not much better here... but I will get to my hatred of why clerics shouldn't be doing what they do in a later post... right now, I am focused on the wizardry world.
No, these people barely actually help to change the world that they are in... if you assume that they exist within the framework of the pseudo-medieval setting that is the stock worlds of Dungeons and Dragons or High Fantasy in general. There are various weak reasons why they have not taken over... Templars, Laws of Magic enforced by overly traditionalist mages, 'the church', a deity of magic who is being obstinate... the reasons are countless on how we are stuck in a traditional High Fantasy world instead of something far more fantastic.
So... we are going to start here... in the world of high fantasy... and start to look at just how magic can actually improve or change a setting so completely and yet still arrive at a world that we can relate to. Finally, we are arriving at a point where the title of this blog finally gets to come into play. How does a society actually adapt and change to reflect powers that magic has over it? How do people come to grips with something that is a force upon the universe once the veil of mystery and the arcane get strips away? What happens to magic once logic and the serious eyes of the educated get turned to it?
Can the traditional mage and the church survive in a world where words like heresy and mystery have been dispelled like a shadow under the light of a lantern?
Friday, February 11, 2011
How magic can circumvent the Industrial Revolution pt 2
It doesn't take a rocket scientist honestly to say that players think outside the box. It is something great to have happen in a small campaign world that won't last past the end of the story line. In a situation like this, no one cares if the mage incinerates a village. Oh, of course someone will but ultimately... it will all disappear when the game finally ends. So will that revolutionary idea of using a zeppelin built by that crack pot that came to be so vital to the party plan. All knowledge is still going to be eternally locked within the ancient tomes and dusty towers of the sages.
The thing is... this is not the case. Not if the game world persists from one campaign to the next. Unless the year is reset to an early/same point as the previous game, the previous characters erased from society or a different part of the world... the old characters might encounter the new characters... altering events and such. Paradox and players who have dealt with time travel and what ifs tend to either embrace them or hate them. No matter what, the idea of having to run the same threat for the party to fight is pretty lame. You can only retread the same path so many times.
No, the only solution is that time has to progress if the world is a persistent one. Someone remembers the fiendishly genius plan of the mage riding into battle in an iron golem. Someone remembers that airship that carried the party from one part of the world to the next. Someone recorded the battles and took inspiration from the ingenuity. Someone remembered what the villains did.
NPCs learn just as much as the players. Albeit, a bit slower because you, the GM, was trying to portray the world as a stock high fantasy world. Those economic trends started by the players might take hold elsewhere.
No... I originally thought about how many ways magic could be used to duplicate or surpass modern technology. There are the classics like a guilder with a trinket that has a continuous gust of air spell put on it strapped to it to get a simple one man flying machine that has no duration. That only costs a mere 12,300g at market value... heck... 6,100g if you got an inside track on enchanters and crafters. It might take a glider or two to get the steering and propulsion... might even finagle out a bit better speed, considering you are no longer gliding and have enough thrust to make it difficult for a man to be able to move (Read the spell)... but hey, flight for less than a fourth the value of wings of flying... I'll take it. I don't care about the fact that I can't hover or use it in a dungeon... in the open world... better believe I am going to use it to get around. Low and behold... the D&D equivalent of a jet engine.
Or the creation of a pair of magic items that when put together creates a nuclear reactor... albeit, one is a custom created magic item. But when you can create an combo that will push a vehicle at 90' per round... no matter what the weather condition. The item says ANY vehicle at this speed... no matter how big. Of course, the biggest ship is a Galley in the basic rules. Actually, under the new Pathfinder rules... the ship speed is doubled by the item rules... to 180' per round... but we will assume that we are using a sailing ship... 90' or 120'. Still. This fast... without wind. Okay, it may not be nuclear power... but hey, 14 mph is not that bad really for a single turbine engined ship. This comes in at the beefy cost of 120,000g (60,000g if you have the crafters able to do it)... but if you are looking for something that can maneuver in foul weather and out run pirates... the ship will pay itself out in the long run. I'll take that... means less rigging for the GM to snare up or set fire.
These are extortionately expensive compared to another +5 sword or armor or that magic trinket but these are the items that change worlds.
Why do these items cost so much? Oh, because they are hand made, nearly unique items that use ancient and arcane Techniques barely understood and with reagents that don't make sense but contain powers beyond recognition and are rare. This is how it will always be.
But what if the scientific theory that so drove mundane science was turned towards the arcane?
To use an Alpha Centauri quote...
"We hold life to be sacred, but we also know the foundation of life consists in a stream of codes not so different from the successive frames of a watchvid. Why then cannot we cut one code short here, and start another there? Is life so fragile that it can withstand no tampering? Does the sacred brook no improvement?"
Why must magic be forever trapped in the chains of always being something so arcane. Mages, through the very act of intellect, are able to manipulate the very essence of creation and turn it against their enemies. Their books are filled with piles equations, runes, formula, and such. Potion masters can distill and trap divine power into a potion form. Wands and staves do the same.
It may take centuries... but scholars might be able to unlock the very secrets of how mana flows... freeing it from the very trappings of the shadows of past and mystery. Perhaps they could see the secrets of what makes deities what they are... how they perform their abilities. Psionics unlocked... yeah, it might be the equivalent to the age of enlightenment or discovery before real breakthroughs happen... thus pushing through the very edge of what a typical game might go... but if a campaign world has managed to make it long enough... and the players still enthusiastic... it just might make it that far. After all... elves live a 1000 years... why not? Not ever elf desires to stay trapped in a single age like the elves of Tolkien.
Magic items are better understood... the equations better known... the materials standardized. Costs drop. Especially if there is a demand or a state controls the sources to create it. Hey, the dawn of the magical industrial revolution and an age of imperialism is just around the corner.
I might ramble more on this later.
The thing is... this is not the case. Not if the game world persists from one campaign to the next. Unless the year is reset to an early/same point as the previous game, the previous characters erased from society or a different part of the world... the old characters might encounter the new characters... altering events and such. Paradox and players who have dealt with time travel and what ifs tend to either embrace them or hate them. No matter what, the idea of having to run the same threat for the party to fight is pretty lame. You can only retread the same path so many times.
No, the only solution is that time has to progress if the world is a persistent one. Someone remembers the fiendishly genius plan of the mage riding into battle in an iron golem. Someone remembers that airship that carried the party from one part of the world to the next. Someone recorded the battles and took inspiration from the ingenuity. Someone remembered what the villains did.
NPCs learn just as much as the players. Albeit, a bit slower because you, the GM, was trying to portray the world as a stock high fantasy world. Those economic trends started by the players might take hold elsewhere.
No... I originally thought about how many ways magic could be used to duplicate or surpass modern technology. There are the classics like a guilder with a trinket that has a continuous gust of air spell put on it strapped to it to get a simple one man flying machine that has no duration. That only costs a mere 12,300g at market value... heck... 6,100g if you got an inside track on enchanters and crafters. It might take a glider or two to get the steering and propulsion... might even finagle out a bit better speed, considering you are no longer gliding and have enough thrust to make it difficult for a man to be able to move (Read the spell)... but hey, flight for less than a fourth the value of wings of flying... I'll take it. I don't care about the fact that I can't hover or use it in a dungeon... in the open world... better believe I am going to use it to get around. Low and behold... the D&D equivalent of a jet engine.
Or the creation of a pair of magic items that when put together creates a nuclear reactor... albeit, one is a custom created magic item. But when you can create an combo that will push a vehicle at 90' per round... no matter what the weather condition. The item says ANY vehicle at this speed... no matter how big. Of course, the biggest ship is a Galley in the basic rules. Actually, under the new Pathfinder rules... the ship speed is doubled by the item rules... to 180' per round... but we will assume that we are using a sailing ship... 90' or 120'. Still. This fast... without wind. Okay, it may not be nuclear power... but hey, 14 mph is not that bad really for a single turbine engined ship. This comes in at the beefy cost of 120,000g (60,000g if you have the crafters able to do it)... but if you are looking for something that can maneuver in foul weather and out run pirates... the ship will pay itself out in the long run. I'll take that... means less rigging for the GM to snare up or set fire.
These are extortionately expensive compared to another +5 sword or armor or that magic trinket but these are the items that change worlds.
Why do these items cost so much? Oh, because they are hand made, nearly unique items that use ancient and arcane Techniques barely understood and with reagents that don't make sense but contain powers beyond recognition and are rare. This is how it will always be.
But what if the scientific theory that so drove mundane science was turned towards the arcane?
To use an Alpha Centauri quote...
"We hold life to be sacred, but we also know the foundation of life consists in a stream of codes not so different from the successive frames of a watchvid. Why then cannot we cut one code short here, and start another there? Is life so fragile that it can withstand no tampering? Does the sacred brook no improvement?"
Why must magic be forever trapped in the chains of always being something so arcane. Mages, through the very act of intellect, are able to manipulate the very essence of creation and turn it against their enemies. Their books are filled with piles equations, runes, formula, and such. Potion masters can distill and trap divine power into a potion form. Wands and staves do the same.
It may take centuries... but scholars might be able to unlock the very secrets of how mana flows... freeing it from the very trappings of the shadows of past and mystery. Perhaps they could see the secrets of what makes deities what they are... how they perform their abilities. Psionics unlocked... yeah, it might be the equivalent to the age of enlightenment or discovery before real breakthroughs happen... thus pushing through the very edge of what a typical game might go... but if a campaign world has managed to make it long enough... and the players still enthusiastic... it just might make it that far. After all... elves live a 1000 years... why not? Not ever elf desires to stay trapped in a single age like the elves of Tolkien.
Magic items are better understood... the equations better known... the materials standardized. Costs drop. Especially if there is a demand or a state controls the sources to create it. Hey, the dawn of the magical industrial revolution and an age of imperialism is just around the corner.
I might ramble more on this later.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
How magic can circumvent the Industrial Revolution pt 1
Its no false statement to say that we play fantasy to escape for the modern day but we also bring the modern day with us when we play.
Look at your players... look at what is offered. Only in the most grittiest of low magic games does what I am about to talk about not occur. What am I talking about? Modern conveniences in a fantasy game.
But this isn't a problem, is it? After all... most of us like to have some of the things we have grown accustomed to, right? Of course!
Magic swords and armor is one thing... but what happens when your players get... smart? Creative?
You can't really have a simulation type game when I am flying on a griffin. Or flying in general. Or an archer who levitated up to a place no one can get to for that firing position on the advancing army. You know the one that the druid helped carve out of the hill side to provide cover? Or the druid who is casting fire from her eye balls while skittering about as a squirrel.
Like wise... have you ever had a player look at you and ask if he can make a golem? If he has the money... why not... right? Sure it is an iron golem... this is a higher level game, right? Okay... cool. Now, he asks... can he ride inside it? He is still controlling technically. He just hollowed it out inside to have a place for him. If you say yes... congratulations... you have just recreated what modern technology has barely even started to attempt... you have created power armor.
Most splat books have mechanical things you can build... some of them are... fanciful. Like gilders or submarines or zeppelins. After all, everyone loves airships almost as much as they love having a tall ship to sail on. I have not met a player yet that doesn't actually want a sailing ship... as long as it isn't a galley. There is the siege towers and the armored wagons.
Don't tell me your players have NEVER wanted to do this at one time or another. I mean, the armored wagon with a ballista on top? Tanks never get old... no matter how old the player is. If given the option, I have heard the youngest players to the old battle vets in their 50s jump at the idea if the GM will allow it.
Players think they are really creative. Honestly... at times... they are. They find the most broken uses for magical items and situations. No manor house is too safe... no castle secure. To the veteran player, asymmetrical warfare is second nature and no Romanesque legion of doom will ever make them falter.
If you are not careful, your players will try to acquire an airship, flying boat, or zeppelins and launch glider borne raids on castles from miles away in the dark of they night... if they don't just cast fly... but spells are limited... the glider is cheap.
What prevents the glider from being more effective? First off... we are in a fantasy game... how the hell did I get a glider? I dunno.. the same place the flying boat came from? How about the Ornithopter? We won't ask about the submarine? Obviously... in our high fantasy game... we have rudimentary ideas of how lighter than air and heavier than air flight is done. Well, it is magic after all and after watching the great wyrm red dragon burn our village last year... I can see how motivation towards perfecting a flying machine might have a bit more impetus to being done.
Well... mages won't help us advance. Are you sure? Look at your average dungeon party load out... yeah... they do. All it takes is one or two who feel like advancing the world to actually do so. To teach instead of just hoard.
But that is the thing... people assume that high fantasy worlds are perpetually locked in a pseudo-medieval Renaissance time frame. There will never be a ship better than the carrack or caravel and most still use galleys. Gun powder won't be available most of the time... most GMs won't allow it out of fear that guns will replace their beloved weapons. Everything has to be crafted by hand... nothing is interchangeable with anything else... and nothing will ever improve. Behold plate armor... our god and savior.
Our lands are farmed by hand... with primitive ox and plow... trees felled by great men who go into the dark forests... so on and so forth.
BS.
Give the players the reigns to a settlement for a bit and watch the magic. Especially if they have the average wealth that adventures carry in liquid assets.
Depending on their environment, the settlement will reflect it. I have seen players build vast mountain fortresses with water powered everything (there was a river near by). They shaped the very rivers itself (Yay for magic) to make it more efficient. To quote the player... log flume rides get you around in a jiffy. Yay for engineers.
Another player in the mountains literally quarried out the very mountain itself, terracing the land to create vast amounts of farmland (again, yay magic). The people themselves lived in a vast underground city but thanks to magic... was very well lit and ventilated... only going out via the fortified exits to tend the fields or to help add additional heavy fortifications and towers to the perimeter of the territory thanks to all the stone being quarried out for additional farmland and living space at a slow but steady pace.
I could go on but won't... it is just what people will do when they really get going.
They will pour vast amounts of money into the economy... based on what is in the area. Iron mine? Of hell yeah... you better believe that there will be a forge, a smith, and if the more industrial minded people are playing... a smelting facility. Rocky area? Quarry and prospecting. Wooded area? Lumber mills. Grasslands and plains? Agriculture and brewing. They will jump head long into the economics game if allowed to create a sustainable income.
An income not dependent upon a GM's whims. Oh, don't give me the old 'just raid their stuff' excuse. They will guard that. Initially with their own hands... later as their economic influences increase... with guards. As much as we would like to honestly say that monster will get progressively more deadly or the bandit lords more effective... There is a limit to what a player can believe.
After all... how many times will they believe that a beholder attacked their caravan or that the 12th bandit lord of the north has arrived? No... if you do that... you will see convoys that will make Mad Max shiver in fear start to arise. The type that you see the signs of their arrival hours before they are seen. One player literally got so tired of a GM screwing with his caravans that the size and defenses of his caravans were starting to rival the size of late WW2 Atlantic convoys. Complete with massive armored wagons with balistas with companies of troops, mages, clerics, and scouts riding in the wings and flying scouts looking on high. Short of a dragon, they could handle nearly anything... and in one theoretical encounter just to test it... short of an elder dragon... the volume of fire that could be concentrated was staggering. It was a small army just to guard the player's important trade routes from a dickish GM.
This is what paranoid players resort to. Remember though... most of the world DOESN'T do this. Most merchants are able to get from point a to point b unmolested. It is how ANY trade is accomplished.
No, players want to establish a stead income they can count on... sure, the adventuring gives them the money to spend on frivolous things but the engineering types... the accountants and civil engineers that I game with... no... the stead income is investment money that can be used to build empires...
and to cheat the technology system altogether.
Look at your players... look at what is offered. Only in the most grittiest of low magic games does what I am about to talk about not occur. What am I talking about? Modern conveniences in a fantasy game.
But this isn't a problem, is it? After all... most of us like to have some of the things we have grown accustomed to, right? Of course!
Magic swords and armor is one thing... but what happens when your players get... smart? Creative?
You can't really have a simulation type game when I am flying on a griffin. Or flying in general. Or an archer who levitated up to a place no one can get to for that firing position on the advancing army. You know the one that the druid helped carve out of the hill side to provide cover? Or the druid who is casting fire from her eye balls while skittering about as a squirrel.
Like wise... have you ever had a player look at you and ask if he can make a golem? If he has the money... why not... right? Sure it is an iron golem... this is a higher level game, right? Okay... cool. Now, he asks... can he ride inside it? He is still controlling technically. He just hollowed it out inside to have a place for him. If you say yes... congratulations... you have just recreated what modern technology has barely even started to attempt... you have created power armor.
Most splat books have mechanical things you can build... some of them are... fanciful. Like gilders or submarines or zeppelins. After all, everyone loves airships almost as much as they love having a tall ship to sail on. I have not met a player yet that doesn't actually want a sailing ship... as long as it isn't a galley. There is the siege towers and the armored wagons.
Don't tell me your players have NEVER wanted to do this at one time or another. I mean, the armored wagon with a ballista on top? Tanks never get old... no matter how old the player is. If given the option, I have heard the youngest players to the old battle vets in their 50s jump at the idea if the GM will allow it.
Players think they are really creative. Honestly... at times... they are. They find the most broken uses for magical items and situations. No manor house is too safe... no castle secure. To the veteran player, asymmetrical warfare is second nature and no Romanesque legion of doom will ever make them falter.
If you are not careful, your players will try to acquire an airship, flying boat, or zeppelins and launch glider borne raids on castles from miles away in the dark of they night... if they don't just cast fly... but spells are limited... the glider is cheap.
What prevents the glider from being more effective? First off... we are in a fantasy game... how the hell did I get a glider? I dunno.. the same place the flying boat came from? How about the Ornithopter? We won't ask about the submarine? Obviously... in our high fantasy game... we have rudimentary ideas of how lighter than air and heavier than air flight is done. Well, it is magic after all and after watching the great wyrm red dragon burn our village last year... I can see how motivation towards perfecting a flying machine might have a bit more impetus to being done.
Well... mages won't help us advance. Are you sure? Look at your average dungeon party load out... yeah... they do. All it takes is one or two who feel like advancing the world to actually do so. To teach instead of just hoard.
But that is the thing... people assume that high fantasy worlds are perpetually locked in a pseudo-medieval Renaissance time frame. There will never be a ship better than the carrack or caravel and most still use galleys. Gun powder won't be available most of the time... most GMs won't allow it out of fear that guns will replace their beloved weapons. Everything has to be crafted by hand... nothing is interchangeable with anything else... and nothing will ever improve. Behold plate armor... our god and savior.
Our lands are farmed by hand... with primitive ox and plow... trees felled by great men who go into the dark forests... so on and so forth.
BS.
Give the players the reigns to a settlement for a bit and watch the magic. Especially if they have the average wealth that adventures carry in liquid assets.
Depending on their environment, the settlement will reflect it. I have seen players build vast mountain fortresses with water powered everything (there was a river near by). They shaped the very rivers itself (Yay for magic) to make it more efficient. To quote the player... log flume rides get you around in a jiffy. Yay for engineers.
Another player in the mountains literally quarried out the very mountain itself, terracing the land to create vast amounts of farmland (again, yay magic). The people themselves lived in a vast underground city but thanks to magic... was very well lit and ventilated... only going out via the fortified exits to tend the fields or to help add additional heavy fortifications and towers to the perimeter of the territory thanks to all the stone being quarried out for additional farmland and living space at a slow but steady pace.
I could go on but won't... it is just what people will do when they really get going.
They will pour vast amounts of money into the economy... based on what is in the area. Iron mine? Of hell yeah... you better believe that there will be a forge, a smith, and if the more industrial minded people are playing... a smelting facility. Rocky area? Quarry and prospecting. Wooded area? Lumber mills. Grasslands and plains? Agriculture and brewing. They will jump head long into the economics game if allowed to create a sustainable income.
An income not dependent upon a GM's whims. Oh, don't give me the old 'just raid their stuff' excuse. They will guard that. Initially with their own hands... later as their economic influences increase... with guards. As much as we would like to honestly say that monster will get progressively more deadly or the bandit lords more effective... There is a limit to what a player can believe.
After all... how many times will they believe that a beholder attacked their caravan or that the 12th bandit lord of the north has arrived? No... if you do that... you will see convoys that will make Mad Max shiver in fear start to arise. The type that you see the signs of their arrival hours before they are seen. One player literally got so tired of a GM screwing with his caravans that the size and defenses of his caravans were starting to rival the size of late WW2 Atlantic convoys. Complete with massive armored wagons with balistas with companies of troops, mages, clerics, and scouts riding in the wings and flying scouts looking on high. Short of a dragon, they could handle nearly anything... and in one theoretical encounter just to test it... short of an elder dragon... the volume of fire that could be concentrated was staggering. It was a small army just to guard the player's important trade routes from a dickish GM.
This is what paranoid players resort to. Remember though... most of the world DOESN'T do this. Most merchants are able to get from point a to point b unmolested. It is how ANY trade is accomplished.
No, players want to establish a stead income they can count on... sure, the adventuring gives them the money to spend on frivolous things but the engineering types... the accountants and civil engineers that I game with... no... the stead income is investment money that can be used to build empires...
and to cheat the technology system altogether.
The Follies of Magic pt 1
What does D&D, when mentioned invoke?
To most, it will definitely be images of huge dragons soaring through the sky, white marble castles, armored knights parading across fields, leather clad sneaks darting about in the dark of night, terrifying dungeons full of treasure... and magic.
Oh... its the magic. Supposedly the sole domain of the wizard and cleric... our iconic lonely hermit in a tower or bedecked in vestments priest in their cathedrals tending the masses that hold the populace in sway. Dark and dangerous heretics in the shadows, the otherworldly touched sorcerers, the hedge wizards, and the terrible druids who hide mysteriously in the deepest woods beyond the safety of the roads. This is what most think of immediately.
Why? Because this is Dungeons and Dragons... this is high fantasy. This is the dominion of great wizards like Elminster or the iconic Gandalf. Our villains are our dark wizards or corrupt clerics. After all, what can truly be more terrifying than someone who wields the power to manipulate the very fabric of reality or channel the power of an unfathomable god. I'll touch on my feelings on deities later... that is not the thing I am chasing after today.
But magic is a rare thing, yes? Right?
No... it's not. Every bloody adventurer worth two cents has something magical. Ultimately, by mid level... if going by the suggested wealth in the books... his boots, his cloak, two rings, a belt, his armor, his shirt, his necklace, a headband, his arm bands, his gloves, two of his belt pouches, countless tiny things in his pockets, some vials in a bandoleer, and at least two weapons or a shield if he is feeling traditional in terms of going out as a sword and board type. His mount is wearing magical shoes if he deems using a mount is worth his time. The selection of wands and staves that have randomly dropped will be worth it for anyone to take the abuse magical device skills.
What? You are limiting your players? Congratulations. You have successfully managed to keep your players happy with what you give them. They have money right? Of course... wealth is a must, right? There are countless ways of determining wealth to be honest... it is not all in coins. Limiting their chances to create magic items with the wealth you are giving them? Of course... you are trying hard to keep it grounded. I know I did for a long time.
Suddenly... like that event that shifts the paradigm completely... something happens. Someone decides to actually start taking all the creation feats... either through themselves or through a follower/cohort. Suddenly the door has been unlocked for the players. The wealth you have been keeping tied up is freed. The doors to infinite selection becomes theirs to open. You no longer have control over what they have at their disposal.
A party has a good deal of resources. All those one use scrolls that have been piling up because there is rarely a point to actually using one suddenly become reagents in items. That money you have been not letting the players spend on upgrades now is... but this time without your 10 to 20+% mark up that you throw on top of all the items when coming from a merchant. No, they are now actually getting it at a 50% discount with no limits... the only limits are their own resources and if the party is big or the right spells are picked... there is nothing keeping them from gearing out completely... save time.
Of course! Time! It is the only thing saving your story... right? Normally, in a quick paced game to take the great item to the place to stop the evil guy or stop the unstoppable legions from eating the good people of generic-burg or delving into the depths of the terrible tunnels of terror... you don't have the time to stop and make all those custom items.
But what if you are running a much more open game?
What if your world is bigger than just a simple adventure? Your time frame is not days or weeks... but months or years? What is the world can survive for another couple months?
Now... your players CAN and WILL. What do you do? Do you stop it? Kill the player or NPC who is doing this? Constantly put something in their way to stop them from being able to? Might work the first time... but after the third... well... you are running dangerously thin on ideas. What is the counter? Oh, there is always trying to match the players... be more open. Now that they have the ability... what is the harm?
But... this is only a piece of the ultimate problem. Now... our high fantasy game isn't quite so... LotR and now more WoW. Then again... if you run a heavy dungeon crawling game and use random treasure... a few lucky rolls can make you just want to cry as the party runs away with massive mountains of treasure and if they are creative... an awesome new dungeon base of operations. Hand picking out what treasure the party gets can side step this but for only so long.
Okay, lets see if we can attack this from a new angle. We can't eliminate magic, right? Of course not... this is high fantasy! If I can not have a mage cast fireball and light a village aflame... what is the point? No matter how much of a simulation game we might make the guy wearing the full plate or how much that long sword weight or the fighting styles be accurate or properly represent a hand axe going through flesh... we STILL have a guy who is flying and shooting lightning bolts. We have someone wearing armor made of ultra-light magic metal that he can summon with a snap of a finger and a sword that crackles with lightning that leaps from his gloves.
Obviously... this is magic going wild. This is also any D&D game that is past 5th level at the same time.
Before that... oh hell yes, it is as gritty as any novel can be. Want to recreate the adventures of Aragorn or Gimli or the Dwarves to the halls under the mountain... yep. Conan time? Yeah! The clash of steel, a single blow fells a man, screams of hordes on the horizon. Having to count every coin and ride on the back of wagons to get from one end of the country to another. By the gods, its great to be low level when you are the GM.
But like kittens and puppies... it never lasts. The game inevitably will grow. They will inevitably need new challenges. New challenges mean new gear that comes with it... its inevitable. There has to be SOME reward for having braved the tomb of the fire queen. Something tangible. Unless of course, you enjoy the idea of making your players nobles with lands to manage... but then you got to reward the party in a fashion that they will all want. It is all social after all. It isn't fair to give one player the title and lands of a count while another player gets nothing but a small pittance... but that is a different problem all unto itself. That is the problem with hand picked rewards... sometimes the players might not want any of your pre-ordained rewards. They will want something else... or might just take it to sell it off in the next city over.
We are now back to the players having vast amounts of wealth and nothing to spend it on... especially if they don't want to tend to lands, build a castle, or raise an army. They are looking to spend it on something and robbing them of money that you have given and they have not spent yet is not fair if done to much and without something to make up for it. Don't be an ass and do that... you lose players fast if you are known for robbing them left and right or by never giving them a selection of anything.
I am kinda rambling here... infact... I think this has gone on a bit too long and off topic.
Needless to say... you can see where I am coming from in terms of the problems of magic in the forms of items.
To most, it will definitely be images of huge dragons soaring through the sky, white marble castles, armored knights parading across fields, leather clad sneaks darting about in the dark of night, terrifying dungeons full of treasure... and magic.
Oh... its the magic. Supposedly the sole domain of the wizard and cleric... our iconic lonely hermit in a tower or bedecked in vestments priest in their cathedrals tending the masses that hold the populace in sway. Dark and dangerous heretics in the shadows, the otherworldly touched sorcerers, the hedge wizards, and the terrible druids who hide mysteriously in the deepest woods beyond the safety of the roads. This is what most think of immediately.
Why? Because this is Dungeons and Dragons... this is high fantasy. This is the dominion of great wizards like Elminster or the iconic Gandalf. Our villains are our dark wizards or corrupt clerics. After all, what can truly be more terrifying than someone who wields the power to manipulate the very fabric of reality or channel the power of an unfathomable god. I'll touch on my feelings on deities later... that is not the thing I am chasing after today.
But magic is a rare thing, yes? Right?
No... it's not. Every bloody adventurer worth two cents has something magical. Ultimately, by mid level... if going by the suggested wealth in the books... his boots, his cloak, two rings, a belt, his armor, his shirt, his necklace, a headband, his arm bands, his gloves, two of his belt pouches, countless tiny things in his pockets, some vials in a bandoleer, and at least two weapons or a shield if he is feeling traditional in terms of going out as a sword and board type. His mount is wearing magical shoes if he deems using a mount is worth his time. The selection of wands and staves that have randomly dropped will be worth it for anyone to take the abuse magical device skills.
What? You are limiting your players? Congratulations. You have successfully managed to keep your players happy with what you give them. They have money right? Of course... wealth is a must, right? There are countless ways of determining wealth to be honest... it is not all in coins. Limiting their chances to create magic items with the wealth you are giving them? Of course... you are trying hard to keep it grounded. I know I did for a long time.
Suddenly... like that event that shifts the paradigm completely... something happens. Someone decides to actually start taking all the creation feats... either through themselves or through a follower/cohort. Suddenly the door has been unlocked for the players. The wealth you have been keeping tied up is freed. The doors to infinite selection becomes theirs to open. You no longer have control over what they have at their disposal.
A party has a good deal of resources. All those one use scrolls that have been piling up because there is rarely a point to actually using one suddenly become reagents in items. That money you have been not letting the players spend on upgrades now is... but this time without your 10 to 20+% mark up that you throw on top of all the items when coming from a merchant. No, they are now actually getting it at a 50% discount with no limits... the only limits are their own resources and if the party is big or the right spells are picked... there is nothing keeping them from gearing out completely... save time.
Of course! Time! It is the only thing saving your story... right? Normally, in a quick paced game to take the great item to the place to stop the evil guy or stop the unstoppable legions from eating the good people of generic-burg or delving into the depths of the terrible tunnels of terror... you don't have the time to stop and make all those custom items.
But what if you are running a much more open game?
What if your world is bigger than just a simple adventure? Your time frame is not days or weeks... but months or years? What is the world can survive for another couple months?
Now... your players CAN and WILL. What do you do? Do you stop it? Kill the player or NPC who is doing this? Constantly put something in their way to stop them from being able to? Might work the first time... but after the third... well... you are running dangerously thin on ideas. What is the counter? Oh, there is always trying to match the players... be more open. Now that they have the ability... what is the harm?
But... this is only a piece of the ultimate problem. Now... our high fantasy game isn't quite so... LotR and now more WoW. Then again... if you run a heavy dungeon crawling game and use random treasure... a few lucky rolls can make you just want to cry as the party runs away with massive mountains of treasure and if they are creative... an awesome new dungeon base of operations. Hand picking out what treasure the party gets can side step this but for only so long.
Okay, lets see if we can attack this from a new angle. We can't eliminate magic, right? Of course not... this is high fantasy! If I can not have a mage cast fireball and light a village aflame... what is the point? No matter how much of a simulation game we might make the guy wearing the full plate or how much that long sword weight or the fighting styles be accurate or properly represent a hand axe going through flesh... we STILL have a guy who is flying and shooting lightning bolts. We have someone wearing armor made of ultra-light magic metal that he can summon with a snap of a finger and a sword that crackles with lightning that leaps from his gloves.
Obviously... this is magic going wild. This is also any D&D game that is past 5th level at the same time.
Before that... oh hell yes, it is as gritty as any novel can be. Want to recreate the adventures of Aragorn or Gimli or the Dwarves to the halls under the mountain... yep. Conan time? Yeah! The clash of steel, a single blow fells a man, screams of hordes on the horizon. Having to count every coin and ride on the back of wagons to get from one end of the country to another. By the gods, its great to be low level when you are the GM.
But like kittens and puppies... it never lasts. The game inevitably will grow. They will inevitably need new challenges. New challenges mean new gear that comes with it... its inevitable. There has to be SOME reward for having braved the tomb of the fire queen. Something tangible. Unless of course, you enjoy the idea of making your players nobles with lands to manage... but then you got to reward the party in a fashion that they will all want. It is all social after all. It isn't fair to give one player the title and lands of a count while another player gets nothing but a small pittance... but that is a different problem all unto itself. That is the problem with hand picked rewards... sometimes the players might not want any of your pre-ordained rewards. They will want something else... or might just take it to sell it off in the next city over.
We are now back to the players having vast amounts of wealth and nothing to spend it on... especially if they don't want to tend to lands, build a castle, or raise an army. They are looking to spend it on something and robbing them of money that you have given and they have not spent yet is not fair if done to much and without something to make up for it. Don't be an ass and do that... you lose players fast if you are known for robbing them left and right or by never giving them a selection of anything.
I am kinda rambling here... infact... I think this has gone on a bit too long and off topic.
Needless to say... you can see where I am coming from in terms of the problems of magic in the forms of items.
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