I totally agree with this, but I think I can elaborate a little bit on where the feeling of insult comes from. D&D is very much marketed as "the system that can do anything." There's a pervasive idea among the 5e community that if you just learn this one fairly complicated system, you can play in any kind of setting or story without ever having to learn another one. As you point out, it's impossible for one system to do all that, but a lot of 5e players are only now catching on to the fact that D&D is actually very opinionated about what kinds of settings and stories you can use it to play. Some of those players feel lied to, and I think there's some validity in that feeling. It would be better for everyone if D&D as a product was more honest about what kind of game it is (and isn't).
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Ya casters are called Glass Cannons they deal a ton of damage but can't take it that's the point. You should be looking at ways to make melee classes deal more damage more often then calling casters op
It might seem nitpicking, but you're getting details about 5e wrong, and it makes me wonder if you play it.
A level 1 Fighter with Str 8 is not getting +6 to damage, they're getting +4. In an earlier post you claimed that cantrips give casters parity with martials, except they don't. Martials add their Str or Dex modifiers to their attacks, cantrips do not. That modifier will more or less double the damage dealt (most weapons average about 4-5 damage from dice, the modifier is likely to be 4-5, depending on whether you've hit your first ASI yet, what stats you rolled etc). Cantrips increase in damage later, but that's in line with Extra Attack, and when certain martial classes stop getting additional Extra Attacks, they get other goodies to make up for it.
I'm not familiar with previous editions, but these mistakes have a massive effect on how to perceive the dynamics of 5e.
You are right. They are getting +6 to attack. (+4 for that STR. And +2 for the proficiency bonus.) But only +4 to damage. My mistake.
But does this make a 1st-level fighter with an 18/00 STR in AD&D getting +3 to attack and +6 to damage "godlike" by comparison? Hardly. And if you are following the conversation you will see that is the claim that was made. And mine is whether or not it makes that 1st-level fighter a killing machine once a weapon is in his or her hand it doesn't make him or her evidence of early editions of D&D being examples of the magic-heavy high fantasy game it has turned into. It is not the same game as one in which a 1st-level wizard starts with one spell. And in which cantrips do the most mundane things.
But now you are nitpicking: A caster being able to deliver 1d8 damage every single round at no expense to his or her total spells for the day makes that caster an endless spring of damage. I have lost count of the number of games I have played in which a caster has just spammed the same cantrip round after round in combat. Or two of the things have spammed what is basically the same spell with a different name. Instead of trying to make use of some utility spell. That is what I meant by their matching martial characters even at the lowest levels. They have become damage-deliverers.
5e is a high fantasy game. That has been my point. It is not heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery. Because users of magic in that subgenre of fantasy aren't just superheroes who can shoot magic beams out of their hands without end.
Four damage and only on the primary, rather than on both primary and secondary. The 5e character does have an edge on to hit bonus, though, I acknowledge. And if a variant human, then could have a feat in there, too... But 1e melees had their own attack table. Then priests were second for melee and casters last.
1d8 per round (with no bonus to damage) does not equal 1d8+6.
But really any cantrip argument seems to be "Spellcasters don't run out of magic, therefore high magic," but ignores the fact that spellcasters still are around as party members and are and always have been portrayed as more than just comic relief.
Answering the OP, I'm not bothered, but it's true that this edition has more magic than any previous edition. Or at least, that's the feeling I have for now.
But... I like magic, I like wizards, so it's fine for me 😅
Not always. Go back and look at earlier editions in which far fewer spells were available at lower levels. In which casters did not have an infinite supply of combat-oriented cantrips to be spammed so they can match even martial classes when it comes to delivering damage in a typical combat round.
What 5e does it does exceptionally well. But can we do without the historical revisionism?
It's not historical revisionism. D&D has never been low fantasy, and while it's true that a first level wizard in 5e can cast more spells per day than an AD&D wizard... those spells do less. In AD&D, ten orcs vs a level 1 party was a TPK... unless one of the PCs had sleep available, in which case the PCs instantly won.
Good old times. Having a wizard in the party with 1 HP.
D&D is high fantasy. It is not S&S/heroic fantasy.
I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing against that, at least based on your particular/academic definition of the terms. The thread literally acknowledges "high fantasy" in the title.
The DMG draws a distinction between "heroic fantasy" and "sword and sorcery," and claims that "heroic fantasy" is the baseline. It, further, distinguishes "epic fantasy" from either, and never actually uses the term "high fantasy." So this is a semantic argument.
D&D has a ton of magic, and whole-ass parties of main characters, and lets the protagonists be powerful mages of various sorts, and doesn't shoehorn magic into a corrupting/evil thing. (As it happens, it has always done this, though at what level the mages start to feel powerful has indeed varied by edition.) That's what people are saying. That's also what the DMG confirms.
It has always been a fantasy game. But when it was one in which a cleric did not start the game with a single spell and had to wait until Level 2 to get his or her first spell (OD&D and Basic) and no caster could wield an infinite number of "blast-y" spells at any given level because cantrips were spells with the most mundane of effects (AD&D) it did not require all that much hoop-jumping to make magic feel rare and powerful.
Yes it did. If you wanted to make magic feel rare and powerful... you ban spellcasting classes entirely. To do low fantasy in D&D you'd need extreme rules such as "add 10 minutes to all casting times".
even in 5e heroic fantasy, low magic can be as easy as 1-2-3: answered prayers are far from the norm, the inquisition warns peasants that arcane magic is demonic (not that they've ever seen any), and then dm removes component pouches / spell foci from the game. add to that a soupcon of witch burnings and rumors that elves steal children. so, can a player be a wizard? yes! but their need for bat guano and sulfur will draw the party to some odd encounters in the woods rather than a quick shop visit. step that up by sending townsfolk as guides and the party now risks rumors of black magic if they cast a spell, heal a wound, seem to often encounter mythical beasts, or even if someone is just suspiciously good at skill checks.
rather than imposing a lot of restrictions, look at it as chance for emergent gameplay. your players don't have to be nervous, they get to be nervous. i would even go so far as to say this could be laid over top of most Forgotten Realms setting modules simply by describing things by the looks or effects instead of by their well-worn names. goblins outside Phandalin become "shabby, crooked forest men who trade only in vicious arrows." no mechanical change, only adding a bit of unknown. rumors of a dragon in Thundertree could include also false rumors of dragons in places where there's just a scary cliff face or naturally nauseating swamp. low magic townsfolk have never seen a goblin or a dragon, and many of them might assume the inquisition would have taken care of it if it were a credible threat. etc, etc, etc.
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
You know what, you make a good point; it was unfair of me to place WotC as the source of this idea. I don't know where the misconception of D&D as the Everything System comes from exactly, but I do know it's strangely pervasive. I see people all the time on these forums and elsewhere trying to "mod" D&D 5e into what is functionally a completely new game, and it seems like they feel this is a reasonable expectation. Some players--probably not the majority, but enough to be worth talking about--pick up D&D and think they're going to be able to make it a gritty low-magic survival game, or a campy modern sci-fi mystery romp, or a freeform improv theatre experience; and somehow all those people think they're meaningfully playing the same game. You don't really see this with other TTRPGs. Sure, there's the many "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "Forged in the Dark" indie games, but the people working on those generally understand that they are making something new outside the bounds of the base system. I don't know why D&D specifically has this problem with expectations wildly exceeding what the system is made for, but we can't ignore the effect it has on some players' game satisfaction.
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
You know what, you make a good point; it was unfair of me to place WotC as the source of this idea. I don't know where the misconception of D&D as the Everything System comes from exactly, but I do know it's strangely pervasive. I see people all the time on these forums and elsewhere trying to "mod" D&D 5e into what is functionally a completely new game, and it seems like they feel this is a reasonable expectation. Players pick up D&D and think they're going to be able to make it a gritty low-magic survival game, or a campy modern sci-fi mystery romp, or a freeform improv theatre experience; and somehow all those people think they're meaningfully playing the same game. You don't really see this with other TTRPGs. Sure, there's the many "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "Forged in the Dark" indie games, but the people working on those generally understand that they are making something new outside the bounds of the base system. I don't know why D&D specifically has this problem with expectations wildly exceeding what the system is made for, but we can't ignore the effect it has on some players' game satisfaction.
D&D's market is big enough that it's the first (and maybe only) ttrpg lots of people have ever played. Combine that with generic "in a game of imagination, you can do/be anything!" marketing that's common to all RPGs, and some people are gonna see D&D as the end-all be-all of roleplaying games.
Four damage and only on the primary, rather than on both primary and secondary. The 5e character does have an edge on to hit bonus, though, I acknowledge. And if a variant human, then could have a feat in there, too... But 1e melees had their own attack table. Then priests were second for melee and casters last.
1d8 per round (with no bonus to damage) does not equal 1d8+6.
But really any cantrip argument seems to be "Spellcasters don't run out of magic, therefore high magic," but ignores the fact that spellcasters still are around as party members and are and always have been portrayed as more than just comic relief.
Did I say 1d8 is the same as 1d8 + 6? No. I didn't. Stop putting words in my mouth.
I am simply saying that even 1st-level casters can now deliver magical damage every single round. They now have cantrips that enable this.
That was never the case in earlier editions of D&D. It is much more magic-heavy now.
Can you name a single protagonist in S&S/heroic fantasy that does this? Are you intentionally forgetting the whole point of my original post?
D&D is high fantasy. It is not S&S/heroic fantasy. You have tried and tried to make this about something else other than my main point. Because you have no argument against it.
Do you to be reminded how completely and utterly beside the point your mention of Hercules was? How your bringing up Tolkien completely and utterly missed the point?
If we cannot agree on definitions, then there is no common point to discuss.
I cannot think of any spellcaster protagonist in any S&S work who does not have at least some form of low level magic that is always there for them. But then, spellcaster protagonists are relatively rare. Actual D&D style parties are relatively rare in fiction. However, to the extent there are caster's in fiction, they pretty much always have some sort of on demand spell.
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
You know what, you make a good point; it was unfair of me to place WotC as the source of this idea. I don't know where the misconception of D&D as the Everything System comes from exactly, but I do know it's strangely pervasive. I see people all the time on these forums and elsewhere trying to "mod" D&D 5e into what is functionally a completely new game, and it seems like they feel this is a reasonable expectation. Some players--probably not the majority, but enough to be worth talking about--pick up D&D and think they're going to be able to make it a gritty low-magic survival game, or a campy modern sci-fi mystery romp, or a freeform improv theatre experience; and somehow all those people think they're meaningfully playing the same game. You don't really see this with other TTRPGs. Sure, there's the many "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "Forged in the Dark" indie games, but the people working on those generally understand that they are making something new outside the bounds of the base system. I don't know why D&D specifically has this problem with expectations wildly exceeding what the system is made for, but we can't ignore the effect it has on some players' game satisfaction.
I think this is just because to anyone not way into TTRPGs D&D is the only game system they have been exposed to and in many cases the only game they know anything about. I'm sure there are plenty of other wonderful systems but other than the old D20 Star Wars game I have never had any interest in trying any of them and it seems lots of casual players feel the same way. When someone talks about a TTRPG D&D is 100% my paradigm and I don't know enough about anything else (fully my own choice - I'm well aware loads of specialized systems exist) to even consider it.
I'm waaaaay too lazy to read other replies, but if no one else has mentioned it yet; you may try looking into Everyday Heroes. It's based on 5e system set in modern times. It's the d20 modern system updated to using 5e. With that said, some of the stories / modules, etc. incorporate some fantasy stuff, like they have some things based off highlander and the crow movies. But I think it's significantly less "high fantasy," than regular 5e.
So, I didn't really know where else to put this other than general...
There's a section in the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide that talks about the various "flavors of fantasy" you can play with D&D. But as things have gone on, and clearly as we move into the 2024 books, it's becoming clear that the designers have clearly leaned in to the "High Fantasy" aesthetic. Sure, you can play swashbuckling campaigns, or embrace horror or dark fantasy vibe, but at the end of the day, D&D has become a game of "superhero fantasy." And nowhere is that clearer than in the plethora of magical powers being baked in to to the new class and ancestry options.
The game has just become overly reliant on magic. Everything is magic, everyone gets magic.
It all just feels like the designers are telling those of us who want less "over-the-top fantasy" in our settings to just go play something else.
Is it just me?
D&D has always kind of been high fantasy and overly reliant on magic. Look at the classes. You had Cleric (Magic) with Druid as a subclass (not akin to 5E version of subclass, but kind of a subset of the parent class). You had Magic-User (magic) with Illusionist as subclass. Fighter (mundane) with Paladin and Ranger as subclasses (both magic). And Thief (mundane but eventually could use spell scrolls) with Assassin as subclass (mundane). So most classes/subclasses were magical.
Dungeons were full of magic items (XP came from GP gathered and, at least how we played it but can’t remember if official, magic items sold counted as XP). Loot, including magical loot, was how you advanced in levels.
Early D&D was inspired by Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Vance. Magic exists in their works. But their heroes—and antiheroes—ain't superheroes sending infinite blasts of arcane or divine energy out of their hands.
Early D&D was inspired by "let's take our experience with miniatures wargaming and reskin howitzers as wizards". The classic weakness of wizardry wasn't "can only do it X times per day", it was "any significant magic takes minutes to hours to complete, during which time a swordswinging hero can turn me into giblets".
Early D&D was inspired by Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Vance. Magic exists in their works. But their heroes—and antiheroes—ain't superheroes sending infinite blasts of arcane or divine energy out of their hands.
Early D&D was inspired by "let's take our experience with miniatures wargaming and reskin howitzers as wizards". The classic weakness of wizardry wasn't "can only do it X times per day", it was "any significant magic takes minutes to hours to complete, during which time a swordswinging hero can turn me into giblets".
Pretty sure Merlin could turn people to newts with a word. Or Circe could. Or summon up a dozen skeletons in time to have bodyguards against the attacking heroes.
The 'classic weakness of wizardry' thing is only from games trying to insert play-balance. To the extent ritual (takes a long time to cast) magic is portrayed, it is either for divinations, or for WMD level attacks that the heroes must stop by way of epic battle.
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
You know what, you make a good point; it was unfair of me to place WotC as the source of this idea. I don't know where the misconception of D&D as the Everything System comes from exactly, but I do know it's strangely pervasive. I see people all the time on these forums and elsewhere trying to "mod" D&D 5e into what is functionally a completely new game, and it seems like they feel this is a reasonable expectation. Some players--probably not the majority, but enough to be worth talking about--pick up D&D and think they're going to be able to make it a gritty low-magic survival game, or a campy modern sci-fi mystery romp, or a freeform improv theatre experience; and somehow all those people think they're meaningfully playing the same game. You don't really see this with other TTRPGs. Sure, there's the many "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "Forged in the Dark" indie games, but the people working on those generally understand that they are making something new outside the bounds of the base system. I don't know why D&D specifically has this problem with expectations wildly exceeding what the system is made for, but we can't ignore the effect it has on some players' game satisfaction.
Fair, and agreed, but WotC has not corrected (that I am aware of) those claiming it is a platform an every genre TTRPG like they have with the new rule set being 5E not 5.5E or 6E et al, That said many of the outlier settings like Dark sun are purported to be to problematic for 5E, though we did get Spelljammer and Planescape but many feel they were a let down. Personally I like where 5E is, and will see where it goes, much like the fashion train all you have to do is stop buying the new if you don't like it, or not buy the old; no one is going to do much more than point and laugh when you do until it comes back in vogue.
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I'm curious/puzzled by this threads weird intervention into the backstory of the brand's past editions.
So are you basically saying you don't care for D&D's embrace of its present aesthetic? I know there's this pedantic point that what D&D's own present DMG uses is incorrect against some definitive academic definition you believe is out there. But that's not really the point of the thread. The DMG calls its default mode "high fantasy", OP seems to have wished for more support for the other modes of fantasy (which may or not fit pedantic definitions some scholars may or may not use). That's what this discussion is about. the present mode of D&D and how well it has or could accommodate other modes.
Yes, Vance etc., earlier editions of D&D, powerful magics was something that was more difficult for PCs to access and was more a challenge posed to the PCs. Early D&D. even had Conan and Lankmar modules. I don't think anyone can really dispute that D&D has evolved so that magic or magical abilities are more accessible. But the point isn't arguing how Appendix N expanded or not, or the purpose of Appendix N. It's whether present fans are happy with the current mode of the game ... which honestly is a weird thing to ask on a board supporting players of an edition that's been around for ten years.
You've never read Vance, have you? Why do you think the way magic works in earlier editions of D&D is referred to as the Vancian magic system?
You might be surprised by just how much Vance you can read and never come across the 'vancian' magic system, as it only appeared in four of his more than fifty novels.
If we cannot agree on definitions, then there is no common point to discuss.
I cannot think of any spellcaster protagonist in any S&S work who does not have at least some form of low level magic that is always there for them. But then, spellcaster protagonists are relatively rare. Actual D&D style parties are relatively rare in fiction. However, to the extent there are caster's in fiction, they pretty much always have some sort of on demand spell.
Definitions of? I provided academic criteria for S&S/heroic fantasy. Are you telling me the likes of Brian Murphy and of people like Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp before him or authors like Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock whose discussions arrived at these terms are "wrong"? Can you even articulate an argument as to why and how such criteria is "wrong"? Because so far your "argument" has been to invoke Conan fighting demons—which is irrelevant—mention of Hercules—which is irrelevant—and the waning of magic in Middle-Earth—which is irrelevant—and to erect straw men in which you claim I have said things I have not.
D&D-style parties were and remain quite common in old TSR novels and fiction today in that vein. Even the 5e DMG references Forgotten Realms series like the Icewind Dale Trilogy as examples of what it calls "heroic fantasy." (These are examples of high fantasy.) The works of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman whether Dragonlance or otherwise also commonly feature parties of heroes. (These also examples of high fantasy.)
The magic system in D&D as has already been explained was originally inspired by how it works in Vance's Dying Earth novels. Novels that take place in a world in which magic is memorized and then forgotten until later relearned.
Sound familiar?
AD&D drew highly on the Vancian model. It is only from 4e that we see the magic system in the game referred to as "post-Vancian."
0e was mostly inspired by Tolkien. 1e had many inspirations. Vance's Dying Sun novels were, indeed, the inspiration for the magic system but a great much more was inspired by Tolkien. They even had to change Hobbits to Halflings over copyright challenges. Tolkien is very much not irrelevant to this discussion.
However, we are talking about High Fantasy vs Sword and Sorcery. Can you please cite a source for your definitions? If you already have, I apologize for having missed it.
My issue with the definitions you are using is that you seem to be equating Sword and Sorcery with Sword and the occasional spell. Gandalf was called a wizard but was really a celestial being. Elrond, though, commanded the river to rise and attack the wraiths all the way from Rivendell. And don't tell me that took a lot of casting time, not when missing the timing would have washed away the Hobbits and Glorfindel, instead. Even in the 3rd Age, there was considerable magic still left in the world, even if the Numenorean wizards seem to have even been slain or have gone down with their island and the remaining Elven casters not being prominent in the story.
If the definition is not a question of what the world is like but what the party is like then the answer is easy. Just declare no full casters allowed in the party.
No. It wasn't. I only had to read that to know you have no idea what you are talking about. Please go and read comprehensive histories of D&D. Like those of Jon Peterson. Instead of just making things up.
Gygax and Arneson both made quite clear over the years they were much more inspired by Moorcock (e.g. the alignment system, the Eye and Hand of Vecna), Vance (e.g. the magic system), Leiber (the introduction and development of the thief and assassin classes), and other S&S authors than they ever were Lord of the Rings.
What inspiration comes from Tolkien? Halflings? A handful of monsters?
You have gone from talking about Conan fighting demons when that had ZERO bearing on any point I have made to now outright making things up.
What they have said over the years could be distancing themselves from copyright claims. AND yes there are other sources of inspiration.
But what about a 'Vancian' system is incompatible with high fantasy and more importantly, what makes such a system better for storytelling?
Edit: And note, casters having attack cantrips does not change the fact the heavy hitting spells are prepared
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Ya casters are called Glass Cannons they deal a ton of damage but can't take it that's the point. You should be looking at ways to make melee classes deal more damage more often then calling casters op
Four damage and only on the primary, rather than on both primary and secondary. The 5e character does have an edge on to hit bonus, though, I acknowledge. And if a variant human, then could have a feat in there, too... But 1e melees had their own attack table. Then priests were second for melee and casters last.
1d8 per round (with no bonus to damage) does not equal 1d8+6.
But really any cantrip argument seems to be "Spellcasters don't run out of magic, therefore high magic," but ignores the fact that spellcasters still are around as party members and are and always have been portrayed as more than just comic relief.
Answering the OP, I'm not bothered, but it's true that this edition has more magic than any previous edition. Or at least, that's the feeling I have for now.
But... I like magic, I like wizards, so it's fine for me 😅
Good old times. Having a wizard in the party with 1 HP.
I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing against that, at least based on your particular/academic definition of the terms. The thread literally acknowledges "high fantasy" in the title.
The DMG draws a distinction between "heroic fantasy" and "sword and sorcery," and claims that "heroic fantasy" is the baseline. It, further, distinguishes "epic fantasy" from either, and never actually uses the term "high fantasy." So this is a semantic argument.
D&D has a ton of magic, and whole-ass parties of main characters, and lets the protagonists be powerful mages of various sorts, and doesn't shoehorn magic into a corrupting/evil thing. (As it happens, it has always done this, though at what level the mages start to feel powerful has indeed varied by edition.) That's what people are saying. That's also what the DMG confirms.
even in 5e heroic fantasy, low magic can be as easy as 1-2-3: answered prayers are far from the norm, the inquisition warns peasants that arcane magic is demonic (not that they've ever seen any), and then dm removes component pouches / spell foci from the game. add to that a soupcon of witch burnings and rumors that elves steal children. so, can a player be a wizard? yes! but their need for bat guano and sulfur will draw the party to some odd encounters in the woods rather than a quick shop visit. step that up by sending townsfolk as guides and the party now risks rumors of black magic if they cast a spell, heal a wound, seem to often encounter mythical beasts, or even if someone is just suspiciously good at skill checks.
rather than imposing a lot of restrictions, look at it as chance for emergent gameplay. your players don't have to be nervous, they get to be nervous. i would even go so far as to say this could be laid over top of most Forgotten Realms setting modules simply by describing things by the looks or effects instead of by their well-worn names. goblins outside Phandalin become "shabby, crooked forest men who trade only in vicious arrows." no mechanical change, only adding a bit of unknown. rumors of a dragon in Thundertree could include also false rumors of dragons in places where there's just a scary cliff face or naturally nauseating swamp. low magic townsfolk have never seen a goblin or a dragon, and many of them might assume the inquisition would have taken care of it if it were a credible threat. etc, etc, etc.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
You know what, you make a good point; it was unfair of me to place WotC as the source of this idea. I don't know where the misconception of D&D as the Everything System comes from exactly, but I do know it's strangely pervasive. I see people all the time on these forums and elsewhere trying to "mod" D&D 5e into what is functionally a completely new game, and it seems like they feel this is a reasonable expectation. Some players--probably not the majority, but enough to be worth talking about--pick up D&D and think they're going to be able to make it a gritty low-magic survival game, or a campy modern sci-fi mystery romp, or a freeform improv theatre experience; and somehow all those people think they're meaningfully playing the same game. You don't really see this with other TTRPGs. Sure, there's the many "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "Forged in the Dark" indie games, but the people working on those generally understand that they are making something new outside the bounds of the base system. I don't know why D&D specifically has this problem with expectations wildly exceeding what the system is made for, but we can't ignore the effect it has on some players' game satisfaction.
D&D's market is big enough that it's the first (and maybe only) ttrpg lots of people have ever played. Combine that with generic "in a game of imagination, you can do/be anything!" marketing that's common to all RPGs, and some people are gonna see D&D as the end-all be-all of roleplaying games.
If we cannot agree on definitions, then there is no common point to discuss.
I cannot think of any spellcaster protagonist in any S&S work who does not have at least some form of low level magic that is always there for them. But then, spellcaster protagonists are relatively rare. Actual D&D style parties are relatively rare in fiction. However, to the extent there are caster's in fiction, they pretty much always have some sort of on demand spell.
I think this is just because to anyone not way into TTRPGs D&D is the only game system they have been exposed to and in many cases the only game they know anything about. I'm sure there are plenty of other wonderful systems but other than the old D20 Star Wars game I have never had any interest in trying any of them and it seems lots of casual players feel the same way. When someone talks about a TTRPG D&D is 100% my paradigm and I don't know enough about anything else (fully my own choice - I'm well aware loads of specialized systems exist) to even consider it.
Other than a few ritual spells which you might never cast, it seems to me that the Totem Warrior could easily be reflavored as nonmagical.
Hey Fam,
I'm waaaaay too lazy to read other replies, but if no one else has mentioned it yet; you may try looking into Everyday Heroes. It's based on 5e system set in modern times. It's the d20 modern system updated to using 5e. With that said, some of the stories / modules, etc. incorporate some fantasy stuff, like they have some things based off highlander and the crow movies. But I think it's significantly less "high fantasy," than regular 5e.
D&D has always kind of been high fantasy and overly reliant on magic. Look at the classes. You had Cleric (Magic) with Druid as a subclass (not akin to 5E version of subclass, but kind of a subset of the parent class). You had Magic-User (magic) with Illusionist as subclass. Fighter (mundane) with Paladin and Ranger as subclasses (both magic). And Thief (mundane but eventually could use spell scrolls) with Assassin as subclass (mundane). So most classes/subclasses were magical.
Dungeons were full of magic items (XP came from GP gathered and, at least how we played it but can’t remember if official, magic items sold counted as XP). Loot, including magical loot, was how you advanced in levels.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Early D&D was inspired by "let's take our experience with miniatures wargaming and reskin howitzers as wizards". The classic weakness of wizardry wasn't "can only do it X times per day", it was "any significant magic takes minutes to hours to complete, during which time a swordswinging hero can turn me into giblets".
Pretty sure Merlin could turn people to newts with a word. Or Circe could. Or summon up a dozen skeletons in time to have bodyguards against the attacking heroes.
The 'classic weakness of wizardry' thing is only from games trying to insert play-balance. To the extent ritual (takes a long time to cast) magic is portrayed, it is either for divinations, or for WMD level attacks that the heroes must stop by way of epic battle.
Fair, and agreed, but WotC has not corrected (that I am aware of) those claiming it is a platform an every genre TTRPG like they have with the new rule set being 5E not 5.5E or 6E et al, That said many of the outlier settings like Dark sun are purported to be to problematic for 5E, though we did get Spelljammer and Planescape but many feel they were a let down. Personally I like where 5E is, and will see where it goes, much like the fashion train all you have to do is stop buying the new if you don't like it, or not buy the old; no one is going to do much more than point and laugh when you do until it comes back in vogue.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I'm curious/puzzled by this threads weird intervention into the backstory of the brand's past editions.
So are you basically saying you don't care for D&D's embrace of its present aesthetic? I know there's this pedantic point that what D&D's own present DMG uses is incorrect against some definitive academic definition you believe is out there. But that's not really the point of the thread. The DMG calls its default mode "high fantasy", OP seems to have wished for more support for the other modes of fantasy (which may or not fit pedantic definitions some scholars may or may not use). That's what this discussion is about. the present mode of D&D and how well it has or could accommodate other modes.
Yes, Vance etc., earlier editions of D&D, powerful magics was something that was more difficult for PCs to access and was more a challenge posed to the PCs. Early D&D. even had Conan and Lankmar modules. I don't think anyone can really dispute that D&D has evolved so that magic or magical abilities are more accessible. But the point isn't arguing how Appendix N expanded or not, or the purpose of Appendix N. It's whether present fans are happy with the current mode of the game ... which honestly is a weird thing to ask on a board supporting players of an edition that's been around for ten years.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
You might be surprised by just how much Vance you can read and never come across the 'vancian' magic system, as it only appeared in four of his more than fifty novels.
0e was mostly inspired by Tolkien. 1e had many inspirations. Vance's Dying Sun novels were, indeed, the inspiration for the magic system but a great much more was inspired by Tolkien. They even had to change Hobbits to Halflings over copyright challenges. Tolkien is very much not irrelevant to this discussion.
However, we are talking about High Fantasy vs Sword and Sorcery. Can you please cite a source for your definitions? If you already have, I apologize for having missed it.
My issue with the definitions you are using is that you seem to be equating Sword and Sorcery with Sword and the occasional spell. Gandalf was called a wizard but was really a celestial being. Elrond, though, commanded the river to rise and attack the wraiths all the way from Rivendell. And don't tell me that took a lot of casting time, not when missing the timing would have washed away the Hobbits and Glorfindel, instead. Even in the 3rd Age, there was considerable magic still left in the world, even if the Numenorean wizards seem to have even been slain or have gone down with their island and the remaining Elven casters not being prominent in the story.
If the definition is not a question of what the world is like but what the party is like then the answer is easy. Just declare no full casters allowed in the party.
What they have said over the years could be distancing themselves from copyright claims. AND yes there are other sources of inspiration.
But what about a 'Vancian' system is incompatible with high fantasy and more importantly, what makes such a system better for storytelling?
Edit: And note, casters having attack cantrips does not change the fact the heavy hitting spells are prepared