More and more, I am thinking about what I DON'T want in the bag of tricks for my game. And by that I do not mean major points of style or types of gaming experience. I am talking about specific strategic options that sound cool and any player is certainly going to want to have them if he can. I am talking about the sort of options that preclude otehr interesting things.

For example in a high fantasy setting I am determined to avoid anything like the big general teleportation that one finds in most variants of D&D. These just kill the logic of an epic journey. Sure, the little characters can go on a long distance adventure, but if your big wizard has the ability to move everyone at once to Mount Doom, then why walk them around the country side, it ain't that pretty. In my game, I have a very expensive special ability that will allow a caster to take herself a great distance, and a familiar or a mount if she has one. Other members of the party? No. And even if the caster does do this, she will use a great deal of her magic for the game session in doing so. This allows players to solve some practical problems without enabling them to bypass a challeneg in the form of a journey.

I am also trying to avoid the many varieties of duplicate means that one sees in D&D3.5. Just had this come up in the game. A player noticed that there was only one way to give a character the ability to breathe under water and it was VERY difficult (i.e. would take several game sessions to get the ability and/or cost several spells to accomplish it), plus it would only last a few minutes. He wanted me to consider making another spell or a magic item to solve the problem. I am considering it in view of the possibility that a different option with longer duration may open up interesting game options, but as a general rule I am really trying to stick with one-option-is-enough as the general principle for the game. When there are 3 or 10 ways to get a certain magical effect, the significance of any one ability diminishes.

The thing I am thinking about here is just the idea that creating one option can very often preclude others, and I am going over it in my head. I think I will include a list of these for GMs. I probably won't call them 'don'ts,' but just suggest that the GM consider the range of long-term implications before creating something via houserules. "Before creating a more general means of teleport, you may want to consider..."

Does anyone else struggle with the need to exclude popular, often expected options? For those interested in high-fantasy, are there any other scenario-killing options you find yourselves trying to keep out of the mix?

You mention D&D specifically in your post, so I'll use it in my examples.

High-level magic in 3.5 can easily be an incredible foil for the GM depending on the kinds of stories he wants to tell.  One of its designers commented "With a high-level wizard it ceases to be about how many hit points of damage he does, and becomes more about how many people in the room die."  As an example, if you take a look at the DMG, you'll see that the CR of the sample traps only goes up to 10.  This is explained in the DMG2.  Once the characters get much past level ten, and have access to things like Disintegrate and Heal, traps cease being much of an issue unless you are specifically tailoring them to the group (with the DMG2 gives you a toolkit to do precisely this).  They just stop being viable as challenges.

My biggest pet peeve with magic, though, isn't this kind of stuff.  I've just adjusted the stories I tell.  Adventures where the over-land journey is important happen earlier in the campaign, and go away once teleportation pops up.  No, my problem is with Identify.

I love cursed items.  I also love items with an allure of mystery.  And here's a first level spell costing 100gp to cast (free if you're a cleric!) that means no player will ever, ever just try out an item.  Or have to research it.  Any time an effect allows a player an unambiguous peek behind the GM screen I tend to get irritated.

On the Identify thing: D&D 3.5 is about items just like previous versions. So why not have a spell identify the basic function of an item so it can be used, but research and experimentation to learn about curses, special abilities, and so on?

chance.thirteen wrote:
On the Identify thing: D&D 3.5 is about items just like previous versions. So why not have a spell identify the basic function of an item so it can be used, but research and experimentation to learn about curses, special abilities, and so on?

Heh!

That is another good one. On the one hand, it can be a pain to try a hundred different magic items out and figure it a little at a time, but if the divination to learn what's what is too easy, then it ruins some interesting game play. I wonder if the trend towards making identification easier can be explained at least partly by the magic christmas tree trend in 3.5. If one magic sword is in the party, then heck it's neat to role-play figuring it out. If there are a dozen new items at the end of each encounter, then it's not fun anymore, it's just a pain in the ass.

I'm trying to keep magic items very rare in my game, so I'm not tempted to make magic too easy. The relevant spell works best on small magic items and can be fooled by large ones. But I may work in an exception, a very simple one, it can't reveal a curse.

I found the best way to omit distasteful artifacts from D&D from your game is not to include them in your game. Seriously, don't mention them, rant about them or explain why you don't have them. No one cares. I made the mistake of omitting stuff but then explaining myself. This just opened up the floor for many frustrating discussions.

Hello Brimshack,

I dunno - there seems to be a trend in RP design that people speak in 'what they don't want their game to be', rather than what they DO want their game to be. I've always assumed you start with nothing, in design, then build from that. I don't think something already exists to subtract from. From this perspective it's quite annoying to see someone stating what they'll subtract, as if something would remain after and I can see that. When all I can see is a subtraction from nothing.

Honestly, I do not think that is what I am doing, or what I am asking.

I should have qualified that and failed to. I just mean it, if it were occuring, creates a communication problem, which wouldn't benefit you. If it were occuring.

When you think about it, magic seems to be fairly rule-breaking even from a historical perspective in most fantasy RPGs.  On the subject of teleport, what good is a wall if mages can teleport entire armies behind it?  Or what about invisibility spells?  These two spells alone tend to render traditional medieval security systems, and most modern ones, too, anachronistic (obsolete).  Therefore, either the kingdom with the most mages takes over the world, mages are the endangered species Tolkien depicted (e.g. they are non-playable), or the setting has to be significantly modified in order to account for "super powers", and the threat they represent to anyone that might have a mage as an enemy.

The easy way, of course, is to remove magic altogether.  Of course, magic is one of the main appeals of fantasy settings.  Not much better is the Tolkien approach where wizards are few and far between, and definitely NOT playable (it works for novels because characters can't "abuse the system", hence you can have wizard characters).  Probably the best option is to simply limit magic.  This is not to say that you need to make magic impotent, but great balls of fire shouldn't necessarily spring from your fingertips when thinking incendiary thoughts.  Let me explain this a little more thoroughly.  The system should be such that there is the potential for great power (providing magical artifacts and evil sorcerers), but that achieving such is extremely difficult.  Also, there should be an element of mystery to magic.

For example, let's say you CAN teleport anywhere.  However, the farther you try and teleport, the more that statement represents potential accidents rather than a measure of power.  Say you can teleport 5 feet, plus or minus an inch, or 5 miles plus or minus 88 feet.  That's right, teleporting 5 feet can leave your feet stuck in the mud or hovering an inch over the ground, while teleporting 5 miles could leave you entombed underground or falling a lethal distance.  Or maybe the distance is irrelevant, and it's some other factor, such as your knowledge of your target location compared to your current location, making it easy to teleport anywhere within sight, but nigh impossible to teleport some place you've never been.  Or some sort of totally weird restriction/factor for teleporting, like the time of day, or the population of magical teleportation bunnies.

Also, maybe you can't actually turn invisible, you just tell people that they don't see you, so it's more of a persuasion type of spell.  However, only the really weak-minded can be fooled completely, and the strong-minded either won't be affected at all or will be alerted that someone is trying to tamper with their mind.  In this case, it becomes more of a camouflage, enhancing your more natural abilities at stealth or disguises rather than supplanting it.

I'd also recommend adding some sort of mystery element to the mechanics of magic.  For example, in the system I'm working on, a character's Spirit attribute, which is used for using magic, is known only by the GM and not by the player.  How exactly it will figure in to the mechanics of spellcasting I haven't figured out yet.  I'm actually thinking that I'll allow the GM to come up with some way to use the Spirit attribute for magic, possibly with a different system for each player.  Of course, I'd have a few suggestions of different ways they could do it.  The point is there there IS a system, and it CAN be figured out, but the player will always be guessing, and only through extensive practice can the player be fairly confident what his spell casting abilities are.

On the subject of magic items, why exactly are "magic" items different from normal items?  To the medieval world, many phenomena we now know to be natural seemed magical to people back then.  Also, someone has said something about magic and technology being indistinct at a certain level.  A steel sword might be "magically" durable compared to iron or bronze swords.  A "magically" forged sword might be indistinct from a high quality sword.  That being said, magic (and magic items) is everywhere.  At the same time, you don't need really ostentatious magic to be everywhere.  If flaming swords are a dime a dozen, they cease to be a novelty.  Items that are magical to that degree would best be used as plot devices, like the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings.  If a character has a sword of ogre-slaying, then work in ogre-slaying as a major point of the plot.  Maybe the whole point of the campaign is to kill a certain ogre warlord.  Don't just hand out "magic" items to everyone all the time.

Another thing to consider in this context is, if magic is a part of everything and indistinct from the natural world, then what exactly do spells like "anti-magic", "sense magic", "identify" (as you mentioned) really do?  If an eclipse is "magical" then can you prevent it with an anti-magic field?  If life itself is somewhat magical, then wouldn't a true anti-magic field kill those it touched, including the caster?  Wouldn't it be more appropriate if "anti-magic" only allowed you to block specific effects (more like a spell negation), or "sense magic" simply alerted you to strong magical movements, which may include spellcasting in addition to more "natural" phenomena?

For additional reading, see the articles on John Kim's site.

A rant thread... good!

The Matrix. Or any parallel world where a character can enter and do millions of things in a fraction of a second (Psionics, The Spirit Plane, etc.).

First these things are so cliché they rarely add something useful or fun to the game. Second, all players sit powerless waiting (getting bored, kibbitzing, backing off the game) for that second to finish while the netrider searches for information, reaches his contacts, fights the security agent AI, downloads the data, etc.

"Hello, this my cyberpunk game and, surprise, surprise, we have a network where people live virtual lives. And the virtual time is way faster than in the real world because... well, uh, because for no other reason that it is well known that virtual is faster than real. I should mention I completely ignore the fact that this is constitutionally a complete game pace wrecker."

My pet peeve.

Callan wrote:
I should have qualified that and failed to. I just mean it, if it were occuring, creates a communication problem, which wouldn't benefit you. If it were occuring.

Brimshack wrote:

Does anyone else struggle with the need to exclude popular, often expected options? For those interested in high-fantasy, are there any other scenario-killing options you find yourselves trying to keep out of the mix?

One of the points I was making is that if teleportation is at all common (as in, any mage or any school of mages can learn it, as opposed to one or two ancient wizards being the only ones ever to have the ability), then sooner or later someone is going to use it as a weapon.  If you want to invade a rival kingdom, overthrow a ruler, etc. and you have mages that can teleport, what precautions are your enemies going to take against you?  What precautions are you going to take against them?  If someone can walk (or warp) through a solid wall, then what good is the wall?  What "extra" can you add to prevent enemies breaking into areas they aren't supposed to be?  If there is no defense against an ability, then something is wrong and either the ability should be removed or altered.

For a fantasy novel I was going to write (I still haven't started it yet) I came up with a variety of races to use.  I specifically wanted to avoid clichés like elves and dwarves.  Unfortunately, "anthropomorphic animals with human dangly-bits" was all I could come up with.  But come on, what kind of wolf-man isn't cool?  I didn't have cat people, though.  My dragon people were pretty cool, too.  I suppose there's a lot of room for creativity, but it's easier to combine creatures we're already familiar with to make new ones.

chronoplasm wrote:
Teleportation I'm okay with though as long as there is a risk involved.
Perhaps teleportation is not truly instantaneous travel, but a short-cut through the maddening warp?
Perhaps wizards who teleport risk attracting attention from nightmarish creatures like the Hounds of Tindalos?

Egonblaidd wrote:
But come on, what kind of wolf-man isn't cool?

Vordark wrote:
If I recall correctly, there was a 3.5 module that featured a kind of teleportation trap.  It was a tower enchanted such that it randomly sucked in teleporting characters/groups from anywhere in the world, to be murdered and looted by the tower's creator.  I'm pretty sure it was called "The Tower of Deception".  Nice way of reminding the characters that they aren't necessarily all-powerful.

chronoplasm wrote:
On another side note, it gives me an idea for a magic system;
the price of magic is that you must make a brief foray into hell. If you come out alive, the spell is cast successfully.
The difficulty rating of the spell determines the number of obstacles you encounter there.

On a completely different branch of conversation, though I realize the thread has aged a week or so ... healing, and clerics. A recent discussion on character death being tied up with "losing the game" got me thinking about this.

Doesn't magical healing and clerics kinda violate the idea of hitpoints?? If the challenge was "reasonable" for the party, the party wouldn't need to stock up a "Bag of Holding's" worth of potions. If magical healing is required to survive a quest, doesn't this imply someone's planning something badly? And by having them in the game, it sort of makes a party's statted power deceptively low. i.e. their ability to resist damage isn't 6d12 + 6d10 + 6d4, it's 6d12 + 6d10 + 6d4 + 20d8

I don't know .. just throwing that out there.

I see it as an expected violation of the basic set up. it is larger than the individual stats give some extra hit points, or some gear gives you more than average damage or damage at a range, likewise mages give extra damage output, often to many targets.

I think much of this particular things deal is about extending play by letting you recover between conflicts, and in part about the importance of healing seen in some fiction, such as how grievous wounds are handled in Arthurian stories. Being laid up is seen in this fiction, but it has to be big and special to merit such attention, so the cleric idea sorta borrows that support roll, while reducing the actual effect of wounds to a less game pausing one.

In the most abstract, I would expect many games to have a feature by which common parameters of a given player are altered. EG this player gets more turns, that player can look at your cards, this player can return from the dead, that player gets 10% more money each turn, etc. There is balance in exact duplicates, and there is differing qualities, hopefully well balanced as well.

I've been rather busy redrafting a few things, but I had a couple more thoughts on this subject, some spurred by the comments immediately preceding:

1) I'm disatisfied with the standard technique of creating a slight chance of something terrible happening on a teleport. This is for one very simple reason, when the chance that a teleportation goes wrong comes up, it provides a very unsatisfactory outcome for the game. I remember my days GMing 1st edition when it was a random roll. Sometimes it would come up that key party members were supposed to have teleported into a wall or something like that. In some instances, that should have been all she wrote, end of game, end of campaign. In others it would have meant a complete derail of the current story line followed by major efforts to rescue the characters that'd just screwed up. Either way it meant the end of whatever plot-line we were following at the moment. Plus it was a hell of a way to end a character. I never liked this and quickly came up with house-rules or magic items to prevent the random disaster.

What seemed much more satisfactory to me was the rule I made up for one campaign limiting the range of all teleportation, dimension walk, etc. to 1 mile per level of the caster. This enabled some skipping about, but it made it likely that players would actually travel around some. It worked for that campaig, not withstanding the ocassional comment about my nerfing a good spell.

Anyway, I prefer to either deny teleportation altogether or to introduce a constraint that works every time and effectively prevents the use of teleportation in ways that short circuit the game.

I'm also very conscious of the over-use of teleportation as a tactical option. It was fun in some cases, but it does (exactly as described above) ruin many other interesting tactical options in ways that now seem too costly to me.

So, for my current game, this is what I came up with. To appreciate the set-up here, you'll need to know that a good spell caster about 10 games into a campaign is likely to have about 10 spells at her disposal per session plus 10 back-up allotments (which may be used for spells, but which could also be used for other things). Also, such a character is likely to have about 4 Actions per Turn. My goal here was to accomplish 4 things:

1) Enable use of Teleportation to solve some practical problems (needing something from town, or to visit someone in a far away place, for example) and to do so for reasonably dedicated spell casters. This is not a spell. It is a Major Special Ability and a character 10 games into a campaign may have about 3 of these. Anyone who has taken this ability has made a major investment in the ability to travel this way.

2) Make use of Teleportation expensive. If you do it, you're down in power for the rest of the game session.

3) Prevent the teleportation of groups.

4) Limit Tactical use, both by the fact that only a truly dedicated caster is likely to have the power (hence he is unlikely to be effective in melee, especially all by himself), and by making the effect take up several actions, thus eliminating the instant pop-in-and-attack option.

Anyway, this is what I came up with:


"Veil Travelling (Personal, Learned) (Wise): Prerequisite: At least one school of Magic.

A character with this ability is able to travel briefly without transversing space. In a single action the character with this ability is removed from her original location. The Traveller must then pick a location she wishes to emerge onto in the next action. She then makes a Hard Task Roll with a Target number of 15. Success indicates that she will emerge from that point. Failure means that she will emerge 1” from his intended location per point off the target number. The direction of the error is determined randomly. The new location will always be at the same altitude as that originally intended by the character. Should the random location be occupied, the character will be placed at the nearest open spot to the obstacle.

Note that if Character travels the veil (whether leaving or emerging) within melee threat range of an opponent, it does trigger a Free Attack.

When a character uses the ability, Veil Traveling, it costs 3 points from her Spell Allotment for the game. Characters must also have been to any location to which they seek to Teleport, or they must see their destination clearly from their own vantage point when first triggering the ability. Note that altitudes may change from location to location, but the character will always come out on the ground or its most obvious counterpart when changing locations. Spell Casters and Familiars may both go together in the event that one of them has this ability, but they must be physically touching one another to do so.

Note: Veil Travel must be completed on the same Turn in which it is begun. A Character may not leave on her last Action hoping to come out at the beginning of the next."

Another thing that I don't like is cross-over spell functions or alternative explanations for nearly identical effects. I still remember seeing a psionic ability in 3.5 that was supposed to trigger the memory of an injury. I thought that was really cool and quickly turned to the page, ...only to discover it did something like 1d6 damage. ...no special constraints, tactical effects, or conditions for creating the damage. Nothing special about the way it played. It was just one more way of doing a specified increment of damage with a little different explanation than the other ways of doing that damage. I was very disappointed. What I wanted was an effect that gave memory some bearing on the game (e.g. you get healed and then take the damage again). What I got might as well have been Magic Missile, or a blast from a Warlock.

Did I rant about this before? If so, I am sorry about the duplication.

Anyway, for this game I decided, not only to try and avoid duplicate effects with different narratives as much as possible. but also to try for radically different types of magic. There are six schools of magic, each defined in terms of the spell functions; Divination (learning stuff), Enchantment (changing the object world), Support (boosting ones abilities and those of allies), Offensive (direct attack), Healing (you get the idea), and Mind Affecting (mental manipulation of others). I've done my best to keep the schools distinct from one another by ensuring that each set of spells contains no spells identical to those of another school. Admittedly, a Character can take more than one school, but that's a choice with a cost to the character. What I didn't want was to have the schools function in nearly identical ways made different only by ad hoc explanations.

I found this was hard to do with my players, at least for a time. This came to a head when the players grew frustrated with the Divination school and began making suggestions for spells that would give them direct combat uses. So, you could cast a spell that would give someone an insight into his opponent, thus granting a bonus on attacks. Alternatively, you could boost defence by giving people intuitive defences. I was actually tempted for a time, but a +3 to attack is a +3 to attack whether it's due to personal insight or extra physical strength. In time I found myself going back to the idea that a diviner is there to learn things, not provide numeric combat bonuses. So, I trimmed out anything that didn't do this and brainstormed a bit about how to make that more interesting. Now Diviners can ask questions about opponents and learn important facts about characters on the field. The player must then use this knowledge to his own advantage. A Diviner can help a character gain a bonus by telling him useful information, but she doesn't have spells that provide numerical bonuses directly.

So, anyway, that's another absence that I find important these days, cross-over magical effects. It's a trap I've fallen into myself many times with house-rules, just adding abilities to classes that take away the uniqueness of other choices. Give the cleric enough offense and you weaken the significance of the mage. Now give the mage a way to heal and you've completed the dark night where all cows are grey.