Quote from: RPGPundit;932641Have you ever run a D&D campaign where you couldn't play wizard (and/or cleric) PCs? Either because the world itself didn't have it (low or no-magic), or because it was super-rare, or for some other reason inaccessible as a PC class?

I have run Adventures in Middle Earth that has neither wizards nor clerics in a D&D sense.

Quote from: RPGPundit;932641Have you ever run a D&D campaign where you couldn't play wizard (and/or cleric) PCs? Either because the world itself didn't have it (low or no-magic), or because it was super-rare, or for some other reason inaccessible as a PC class?

Closest I ever came was 5 fighters, One thief one ranger one mage.   I've also run "all thief" games though one character was multiclass wizard there as well

Both worked well and would have worked fine without the spell casters. Its actually a better type of game IMO than standard D&D

The only caveat is that the DM needs to be careful not to include encounters that require mages to fight and though its not essential some kind of rules that speed up healing

Without clerics and the like, one fight + a long period of downtime becomes the norm and this is not a play-style that is to everyone's taste

I've been rounding up a character roster of all PCs I can remember from any campaign I ran that lasted any appreciable length of time. I'm finding a pretty severe shortage of magic-users. To me, that's find. Anyone and everyone is invited to play one if you wish. But only a few survive and have any longevity.

Quote from: Kiero;932736My ACKS game had no magic; D&D-derived system where I binned all the magic (and monsters) as a starting point. That's because it was a historical game, the only "magic" retained was divination.

Most of the PCs were variations on the Fighter, with one who was a Ranger-variant.

That's admittedly half the reason why I was interested in your game, the other reason being the historical setting;).

Well, it's not D&D exactly, but for setting reasons, Tekumel doesn't have mages. Not really. Sure there are "lay-priests" as a sop to those who think they want to be mages, but really those guys are just unemployed clerics. Also, no thieves, monks, rangers, druids (as such), paladins or bards. The only D&D-like classes permissible in the setting are fighter and cleric.

Adventures In Middle Earth is basically this.

I've played a lot of games like this but not because Wizards or other casters were forbidden. We just had lots of games where everyone wanted to play melee classes. I'm talking about my ever going AD&D 1e game in this respect. I have played in games, mostly 3.5e where the Big Five (Archivist, Artificer, Cleric, Druid, and Wizard) were unavailable and we did just fine. Usually games like this focus more on melee classes or thieves/rogues. There is certainly a certain charm about running a world without full casters. Healing and resurrection are limited to shrines and churches and temples, and if you're using something d20 you can use invocations to accomplish this - at a price.

Dropping full casters for the most part means that you no longer have an "I win" button. Tactics and strategy become more important and teamwork comes to the forefront. You can't just nuke, rinse and repeat like you can in high magic settings.

Quote from: AsenRG;932818That's admittedly half the reason why I was interested in your game, the other reason being the historical setting;).

I only got to run it for 8 sessions, but it worked really well. Absence of magic meant that preparation and tactics came to the forefront. In the big skirmish, we had one PC and their retinue forming a phalanx, another with their warband were roving cavalry, and the others were missile/skirmishers using the phalanx as mobile cover.

One of the big things was that the PCs didn't go about in armour routinely; not only is it uncomfortable when it gets hot, but it's rude to enter someone's home (and illegal for non-citizens to pass within a settlement's walls) armoured. It mean choosing to get armoured up was a big deal, but that in a pinch because they weren't assumed to be armoured all the time, it could be a choice. Their employer's villa was attacked by surprise during the night by some mercenaries, and the waking PCs were presented with a choice: take the time to get properly armoured, but possibly lose the fight, or just scoop up their shields and weapons and get stuck in. They chose the latter option, which put them at a disadvantage against the assailants, who were fully armoured. In addition whenever they went into the city, they had to do so unarmoured and unarmed, which adds a certain tension to the usual dockside carousing.

No. I abhor placing those type of 'walls' into a campaign. If I wanted to play a fantasy game without magic I wouldn't use D&D/PF.

Played in Dragonlance where there were no Clerics (the disks hadn't been found yet), and to play a Mage you had to make up your character and then go through The Test.  Only three mages ever came out of that campaign that ran for years.

Also played in a campaign where there were Clerics, Druids, Magic-Users, etc, but they were usually bound to Temples, Colleges, Circles, etc and hardly ever a free-roaming type.  If something was important enough, the various groups might supply scrolls, potions, etc,  possibly an apprentice or acolyte if shit was really hitting the fan, but for the most part, they were NPCs, always heading out under new orders when things were done.  If you wanted to play a roaming free agent of a magical group, you had to roll good enough to qualify for a Ranger or Paladin.

We sure did!

In fact, one of the longest running meta-plots of my D&D campaign world was that there are only ever 3 wizards of each school in existence. Player character wizards are treated as up-and-comers, and must battle NPC wizards to acquire new spells.

Quote from: RPGPundit;932641Have you ever run a D&D campaign where you couldn't play wizard (and/or cleric) PCs? Either because the world itself didn't have it (low or no-magic), or because it was super-rare, or for some other reason inaccessible as a PC class?

That's how we ran BirthRight. Only humans could use Clerical magic in the setting and I ran a campaign for almost an entire school year in high school with a group without any humans. Now, they could purchase healing but players didn't have any.

Quote from: RPGPundit;932641Have you ever run a D&D campaign where you couldn't play wizard (and/or cleric) PCs? Either because the world itself didn't have it (low or no-magic), or because it was super-rare, or for some other reason inaccessible as a PC class?

By default, no matter what setting I'm running, I make magic "rare" in relation to what is generally accepted by most D&D standards. For me - being a spellcaster (arcane or divine) means something more than just being a profession. It means you're rare among the people of the world, in my games.

This doesn't mean that 9th level spells don't exist, and Staves of the Magi aren't there, etc. It just means magic is generally rare. I don't run my D&D games as magical fantasy Disneylands where you go on the ride (dungeon) where the +5 Holy Avenger drops. Spells are things players need to network with those other few casters. Clerics have to interact on behalf of their deities and their creed to perpetuate their deities' desires. So I make being a caster in my games require some work. But those challenges are designed to engage them because of their profession as they see fit. (I do the same with non-casters too - but obviously their concerns tend to be different.)

That said...

I've run casterless campaigns before. I had to sell it a bit, but it went well. It ended up being a very skullduggery-laden game of thieves and cut-throats kinda game. Still quite fun, but obviously it didn't allow for the crazy gonzo-epic shit I normally go for in my "normal" D&D games.

Quote from: Tetsubo;932884No. I abhor placing those type of 'walls' into a campaign. If I wanted to play a fantasy game without magic I wouldn't use D&D/PF.

3.x/PF is a very different beast to B/X-derived games (and indeed to 4th edition). There is no one "D&D".

Quote from: RPGPundit;932641Have you ever run a D&D campaign where you couldn't play wizard (and/or cleric) PCs? Either because the world itself didn't have it (low or no-magic), or because it was super-rare, or for some other reason inaccessible as a PC class?

I have, although not really as full campaigns, more as "mini series." I like that approach with "pseudo-historical" settings like vikings raiding the British isles, or Romans on a mission in the Pictish wilderness.