Author: Daniel Fowler

I’m about to run Adventures on Dungeon Planet and wanted to see if I could make it feel a bit more like an action Scifi Movie. think Aliens, Doom or Starship Troopers. I have come up with a couple basic moves and some thematic elements that I think will work. What do you think? Any suggestions? Feel free to comment here or on the doc.

What does “low magic” mean and should everyone know who/what Conan is?

When I describe my preferred setting I often fall back on the tags “low magic” and “Conan-like” but I have encountered a fair bit of misunderstanding recently. Some players have also hesitated to join because they do not know the terms or never read the Conan books. I wanted to explain what these terms mean to me in this context and see what they may mean to others. I should also point out that you are not required to read or watch anything to play in one of mine and probably any Gauntlet game.

Low magic just means that obvious magic is rare and unusual (esoteric?). The players can be wizards but the average NPC is as mundane as they get. They may even view spell casters as strange and dangerous. Magic wielding NPCs are likely to be rare and powerful either having been driven into the wilderness or establishing themselves in a position of authority. Magic items are also rare and often subtler. You’re very unlikely to find a +3 flaming sword anywhere. In comparison, Baldur’s Gate is a fairly high magic setting. Every town has a cleric able to cast resurrection, a mage shop and an armory where you can buy several magic items for less than a thousand gold pieces. Every other random encounter will include at least one guy firing off magic missiles and no one raises an eyebrow when a wizard sends his animated iron golem to pick up his dry cleaning.

Conan to me just means that the enemies and plots revolving about the players are generally human and cruel. Instead of dungeon diving under a mountain in the wilderness to slay a dragon, you are more likely robbing a crypt under a temple in an effort to secure some relic for another cult. Life is cheap and people are cruel, especially to foreigners or those who can’t defend themselves. Superstitions abound and strangers are not to be trusted. Non-human monsters are rare and terrifying. Often large magically created abominations or giant animals from another time.

These are just how I read these terms and your definitions may vary. What do you think? Feel free to tell me how you would define them or what terms you think I should use. What other role playing concepts do you think people get confused about?

I ran a game of Dungeon world the other day and had a lot of fun but also had a couple of interesting conversations that I later decided were connected.

The first was a discussion of how bards should be handled before starting the game. The classic example is whether or not a spell caster can cast magic in combat. Say a monster has knocked you down and is clawing at your throat. Is magic missile something you can easily throw around in that situation? Some systems have concentration mechanics and some specify the vocal, physical, mental and material requirements for each spell. I would never ask for that but when I play one of these classes I like to make magic into more of a performance or ritual. Sometimes this means you get charged by a minotaur and try to throw yourself out of the way. As a frail old man the better part of valor often includes screaming for help or hitting something in the back of the head with a stick. I usually let the bard or wizard decide how their magic works in games I run. But I encourage them to embrace the potentially weaker, but in my opinion, more interesting route. Make the spell caster someone who is kept around because he is incredibly useful, not because he can stand in a fight elbow to elbow with the warrior or paladin.

The second conversation was about monsters that traditionally required magic to kill. Is it ok to throw a ghost at the party if only one player has an obvious magic attack. What happens if he gets knocked out or if the combat drags because half the party is useless? At the time I didn’t know how the players would handle it and was a little worried myself. To my delight one of the players confronted the ghost in its native tongue and gave a very reasonable explanation to calm it down. They passed a charisma check and the spirit was appeased. We talked about a few other ways this could have worked out and generally came to the conclusion that they could have figured it out even if the check failed. If all else failed and the fight dragged on I could have ended the fight by having the ghost inhabit one of the players to cause mischief later. I think we all forgot that the fighter’s signature weapon is a magical item too. One player also voiced distaste for the tradition that magic always seems to work even when material means do not, and I agree it’s a bit unfair. I can imagine situations especially against powerful magic monsters (your liches and dragons) where a sword through the neck may be a lot more certain than attempting a battle of magical wills.

I thought about both these conversations later and decided they were connected. In fact I think the rules specifically encourage this sort of GM behavior with the GM move: “show a downside to their class, race or equipment”. Maybe we should not let the wizard / bard go hand to hand casting spells at point blank range and maybe there should be more battles with difficult to hurt monsters. Maybe the “magic always works” problem would seem less overpowered if the spell caster had to hide in the back when goblins ambushed the party. What do you guys think. How do you handle these situations. Are their right answers?

Thanks to James Etheridge, DrOrpheus166 and Christopher Meid for putting up with me.