When everyone is super, nobody is! Why a low-magic, high-adventure setting?
The implied setting of magic being as abundant and as easily accessed and owned as cell phones in modern America is, by far, the biggest bane to the spirit of wonder and discovery that the spirit of the game originally held. True to its roots the early versions of the game held magic as a rare and wondrous and a single magical item could be as legendary as Excalibur. Subsequent versions, especially after the advent of the D20 age, made magic so commonplace that even the tiniest of remote villages have some magical gear or at least components for sale as if they were mere toy baubles.
Unfortunately, one cannot simply address the implied setting as the very rules themselves are built on the assumption that the game is to be played in the implied setting. Gone is the mystery and discovery of having some magical item, but being uncertain of its powers, that had previously spawned many an adventure-filled quest to unlock its secrets. Now the lowliest of spell casters merely need drink some chalky wine stirred with a feather and the deep dark secrets of this mysterious historic tool of the gods is laid before them to be answered by the yawns of players looking for excitement, not exposition to be read off for them.
The setting of Valencia grew into Legends of Valencia with the adaptation aligning the D&D/ D20 magic rules with the lore of swords and sorcery literature. For those that want to play the role and not just roll, Valencia removes the acceptance and embracing of magic from the culture of the setting as well as makes a few minor adjustments to the rules as written so they play more like the rules as intended. Yes, magic still exists and can be tamed or mastered by a select few. But just as in the fantasy literature that the genre is based upon, wielding magic is difficult, can consume one's entire life, and extols a hefty price.
Divorcing the implied setting from the rules is a path fraught with peril. Never mind the fact that Gandalf himself never cast anything more powerful than a third level spell, or that the sorcerers of Pan Tang, and even the great wizards on Melnibone had to make pacts with gods and demons in order to cast spells, all of which extolled a heavy price on their minds, bodies, and their very souls. The D20 mage need merely get a decent night’s sleep, chill out for an hour (never more) and with the flick of his wrist and a word he can alter the very fabric of the universe.
The sense of wonder and the pleasant surprises of discovery are gone from the latter versions of the game; much to their detriment in my opinion. On top of that, the power and ease of all things magic in the D&D world, coupled with it being all-pervasive have created a setting-dependent system that has only one logical outcome. The rules assume the setting and are built to accommodate abundant magic. Regretfully, when everything is magic, nothing is magical. This, in and of itself is lamentable, but the rules assuming the setting creates a paradox.
The rules of D&D negate the possibility of the setting it assumes, but the rules are built upon assumptions of the setting.
Original D&D was built upon the swords and sorcery fantasy literature and borrowed heavily from a romanticized version of medieval Europe for the structures of society. They took such notions and tacked on powerful magical items, creatures, and spells. From version 3.X on we have the assumption that magic is accepted, commonplace, and readily accessible (the very rules talk about larger cities having full-blown magic shops stocked with anything you could ever want! This is like being able to travel to Boulder, Colorado and being able to purchase nuclear missiles off the rack.). On top of that, magic is so powerful and so effortless—by comparison to other tasks—that it nullifies the possibility of the setting existing in the first place.
In the implied setting of D&D there isn’t a single task, job, occupation, or task that cannot be accomplished quicker, better, and easier than it can be with magic. On top of that, magic is superior to everything else. There’s no need for peasant farmers to toil away all year long in the hopes that they can feed their family through the winter with their meager crops and maybe sell a few cabbages on the side because magic can grow your crops for you or even create a feast at will. There’s no need for healers. There’s no need for any transport or teamsters, not even sailors, because magic can blip people and cargo about in the wink of an eye. Espionage becomes meaningless when one can scry. Holding a trial or even doing basic detective work become a moot point as a simple spell can instantly get you accurate and true results. Forget the fact that Gandalf wielded a famous sword (not magical, it was a masterwork). That doesn’t make him a special battle mage or anything, it makes him an idiot because he had fireball spells.
There is no occupation, no task, and no other character class that can even hope to hold a candle to magic’s continual light. Any physical defenses become meaningless; armies are useless when faced with a couple low-level wizards. From peasants to skilled labor to artisans, there is no cause to do anything other than to study magic. The paradox is that in any universe where magic is so powerful, so easy to cast, and so readily accessible, over time the entire world-culture would shift to being solely magic-using citizens. There is simply no profession, no character class, and no mundane task that magic cannot do better and more or less instantly. In such a world there would be no need of warriors, rogues, spies, architects, or any other thing with the possible exception of artists. The entire culture, its economy, and all industry would evolve into being powered by and centered upon magic.
One can argue that magic would only be the realm of the rich or privileged; but over time that argument breaks down into nothingness. In a world of magic, currency would quickly lose any value as one can conjure funds out of thin air. The implied setting assumes that anyone of average stats can at least acquire some small proficiency in a character class. Many a player character has risen from humble peasant beginnings to become a great sorcerer or wizard; so it isn’t a players-only club. The privileged argument is as quickly dispelled as an archer’s arrows when one is reminded that any sizeable settlement should have at least some mages lying about just waiting to become some spell-slinging mercenary to cast spells for those that can pay. If magic is a freely-traded commodity then it is most definitely not the realm of a select few.
Valencia isn't necessarily low-magic; the acceptance and widespread marketing of magic and magical items is removed on a cultural level. By doing so, magic once again becomes magical
When everybody's super, no one is!The conundrum with this paradox is not that it exists; it is that this all-powerful omnipotent omniscient magic in the setting destroys the fun of discovery and the wonderment of magic. Magical items, spells, and creatures are not legendary (or even noteworthy) high points in the life of an adventurer; they are just another yawn in an already sleepy chamber. One can easily ignore this paradox and play at a magic-equals-technology level, but then the game becomes an exercise in metagaming, because magic equals power and there isn’t much point in playing any type of persona in a min-maxing metagame that cannot fully access that power. Then you are playing an entirely different style of game. There’s nothing wrong with running around in an imaginary space being the Wish and the Word or a walking god, but you become just another super hero in a world of superheroes and when everyone is super, nobody is. My preference aligns more to the spirit of the original version; tell me who your character is, not what he can do. Over the decades, as D&D evolved into D20 and beyond, I had a growing dissatisfaction with the implied setting being bound up in the rules. The more coherent rules and mechanics were a great pleasure, but the setting tied into the rules just didn’t suit my type of fun; no mystery, no unknown, and no challenges that cannot be easily overcome by a simple spell. There’s nothing wrong with this style of play, it just isn’t my preference. I discovered that I was not alone and there was a large number of people that loved the game system but had their fill of the magic is everything and everywhere setting. At first I developed my own independent table top roleplaying game system. While it did address the setting as system and system as setting issue and the huge imbalance between the magic spewing and more martial type characters it was neither inferior nor superior to the D20 system; in fact it had a more difficult learning curve. But there is a certain elegance in the D20 system that my system just didn’t capture. Yes, the D20 system is highly flawed, but its cohesion and core simplicity make it a very fun set of mechanics. I then attempted to test out my beginning ideas of a low-magic campaign setting by treating the symptom of the problem (magic is everywhere and commonplace) in a D20 D&D game. This became the first run of Valencia. After that very short stint of running those initial ideas I realized that GM fiat and player cooperation can make an exciting campaign of wonderment, but the huge problem of implied setting bound to system rules still skewed things. Over the next few years I ruminated on how to make magic wondrous and magical again without totally castrating the spell-using players. A liberal application of “house rules” for the setting coupled with taking magic-as-technology to its extreme disastrous outcome is the end result of the Legends of Valencia. While power-gamers that want to leverage every advantage from the rules as written won’t like this; it isn’t made for those types. The Legends of Valencia modifies the magic system of the D20 systems to make it rare and wondrous again while still allowing for the power of ultimate magic…if one is willing to do the work and then pay the price.
Sooner or later they all run out of spells, but a mighty blade never runs out of blood-lust
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