Have 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?
Ive played in two where all sorts of casters from wizards to bards were either non-existent or rare NPCs only. The class options were Fighter, Thief, Monk and magic-less Paladins, Rangers and Bards. Another one it was all fighters and thieves with magic users and clerics lumped together as as usually hostile NPCs. And a third that doesnt quite count that had just fighters set in a Barsoom themed campaign. No magic at all. Closer to Gamma World minus the mutant powers. Which someone else ran.
Currently we are prepping still a 5e campaign where everyone is playing just a Fighter. Everything else is NPC only.
I played in a campaign where Druids were NPC only. The DM used them as a "godless" faction where Druids were actually vessels possessed by the "World-Spirit" itself. The greatest of Druids were almost demigods--or at least so we were told; we never ran into any near that level of power.
I ran a 4e campaign with only Martial classes (fighters, rangers, rogues, warlords) and NPC casters only had rituals. I wanted to do something Conan-esque and it worked great. Since 4e doesn't rely on healing from clerics, it wasn't a big issue to nuke them or the wizards from the setting.
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?
No.
For starters, if I were to do that, I would not use D&D because I would have to remove too much of what I feel makes the game D&D. I would use Traveller instead and cap the Tech Level at 0 or 1, maybe 2, and have the 'monsters' be animals created using the Animal Encounters system. I could even use it again as a lost colony of some kind.
Not where they couldn't exist, but plenty where they didn't exist.
If I want D&D where PC Magic Users are not possible I'll play Pendragon.
But I have seen plenty of parties, especially at low levels, that didn't include any spell casters.
I've run some Conan-style games where the only magic users were NPCs, and some Lankhmar games where I had placed a strict level cap on magic users at 4th. My problem is that my wife only wants to play magic users and so that tends to limit the style of game I run if I want her to play.
Personal Experience:
Tried it in 2nd and 3rd, and it works well at lower levels, but above 7th, magic becomes necessary, especially in 3.x. However, if you have house rules in place, then they'll work.
No. Players aren't fans of that.
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?
Not in a full D&D campaign, no, but certainly in some one-off or similar games.
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?
Yes, more than once:).
The most recent was when I ran a one-shot of Backswords and Bucklers, where there's only a Wise (Wo)man class, which is definitely not the same as a Wizard or Cleric. Unless, of course, you believe that the ability to find missing things with two crossed twigs, brew poisons and emetics, and perform basic healing and surgery, is somehow the same as Burning Hands, Sleep, and Cure Wounds;)!
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?
No. Could be fun.
Indirectly related, I did manage to get off a session of Pathfinder where only Half-Orc, Human and Orc were playable Races. Every other one either didn't exist implicitly or existed in inaccessible terms mechanics-wise. It was quite interesting to see the reaction of the PCs to the starting event: an Orc being beaten by Humans in the middle of the street because he apparently "stole something" (he didn't but that wasn't the point, evidently) and so you very quickly had the players actually kinda size each other up from there and have their PCs act accordingly (tried talking first via the Orc Sorcerer, had limited success but then the Half-Orc Monk PC failed a Will save due to one of mob throwing the racial slur of "skinner" and decided to stove in one of the mob's heads and it devolved from there -- the Human PCs didn't really combat what the mob was accusing the Orc NPC of which was VERY interesting and caused tension for the last couple hours of the session).
I was just thinking that I've run many games of Mazes & Minotaurs (http://storygame.free.fr/MAZES.htm) where nobody played a spell caster. My main play of M&M has been my ongoing campaign with drop-in players who pick their PC from the collection of characters aboard the ship. I've got a dozen PCs and only 4-6 players so thinking back, I know I've run non-caster games. Which is interesting because I do the same with my on-going OD&D campaign but I doubt that I ever ran an OD&D session without at least one caster at the table.
My 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.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;932687Personal Experience:
Tried it in 2nd and 3rd, and it works well at lower levels, but above 7th, magic becomes necessary, especially in 3.x. However, if you have house rules in place, then they'll work.
Sorry. No. Magic does not become "necessary" if the DM is actually paying attention.
The fighter PCs might need some magic items/weapons against possible NPC casters. But run properly even that might not be needed.
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.
Quote from: Kiero;9329613.x/PF is a very different beast to B/X-derived games (and indeed to 4th edition). There is no one "D&D".
OK. I still wouldn't run a campaign without arcane caster. Than again I wouldn't run an older edition of D&D if you put a gun to my head.
Revised 3rd edition, 4th edition, and even 5th allow for varieties of play that can, quite well I may add, allow for the exclusion of things like arcane or divine casters. I have played in a game (v3.5) where no one actually picked a spell casting class (Rogue, Fighter, a Barbarian, and a Marshal I believe) and we all laughed thinking we'll be dead soon. Potions were a tad more common and we urged the Rogue to put ranks into Use Magic Device but it went pretty well. We played to 6th level or so which might have gotten worse had we went higher.
Quote from: Tetsubo;933040OK. I still wouldn't run a campaign without arcane caster. Than again I wouldn't run an older edition of D&D if you put a gun to my head.
Phew! For a minute there we all were worried about whether your stance on
this had changed.:-/
Quote from: Batman;933126Revised 3rd edition, 4th edition, and even 5th allow for varieties of play that can, quite well I may add, allow for the exclusion of things like arcane or divine casters. I have played in a game (v3.5) where no one actually picked a spell casting class (Rogue, Fighter, a Barbarian, and a Marshal I believe) and we all laughed thinking we'll be dead soon. Potions were a tad more common and we urged the Rogue to put ranks into Use Magic Device but it went pretty well. We played to 6th level or so which might have gotten worse had we went higher.
In 4th everyone's a caster anyway with their own set of Weaboo AEDU no matter what "power source". :D
Quote from: CRKrueger;933131In 4th everyone's a caster anyway with their own set of Weaboo AEDU no matter what "power source". :D
Fighters that can do damage on a miss... I do kind of like how the At Will powers reminded Wizards that Cantrips were a thing in 1e and by combining the two you can have low level casters that can actually do something more than once. Of course Variant Human and Magical Aptitude and you too can have a built in gun.
Back to the main topic. I've played in a few 3.5e games that used the e6 rules. I even made a d20 Modern Variant (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c76TWwgZCBEodyr6jKU7ahDUnxFaP88dkerJ99UaIyA/edit?usp=sharing). The main way I handled spells for higher levels was to use the 3.5e Option for Incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm). This could probably work here, for both arcane and divine spellcasters. So if you have no arcane spellcasters you could still have a character who is an occultist or a member of some group like the Golden Dawn who knows the fundamentals of magic, but in order to perform it elaborate rituals are needed. In some cases they may be able to open ancient tomes and read out spells from the pages. There can be some risk involved in this particularly if said tome has a title like the Ectocromiton.
This works great with healing as well. Instead of casting a spell, the fellow might have to lay on a stone slab for a few hours while acolytes pray over him. Of course there is a wait, but a generous donation could defer that. So if you want to work in local religion into the game, this is a good way to do this. By necessity, the characters will have to be on good terms with one of the local churches. Well they don't have to but they'll last longer.
Incantations could be ported easily enough to 5e or an OSR. If using 5e, I'd consider adjusting rest times. For an OSR, I don't think you have to change much. For the sake of healing, the same spells are cast but the casting time is lengthened. Characters may also have to gather components for services, or as an adventure seed.
Quote from: cranebump;933128Phew! For a minute there we all were worried about whether your stance on this had changed.:-/
Why would you care for even one second? For the time it took to make that comment? Perhaps I should be flattered...
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?
Never have. To me, it's really not very interesting fantasy RPG without magic. If I run or play an RPG without magic it will be far future or post-apocalyptic.
Quote from: Xanther;933188Never have. To me, it's really not very interesting fantasy RPG without magic. If I run or play an RPG without magic it will be far future or post-apocalyptic.
OK, so if the players can't have magic, you assume that no one else, or not even the world, can be magical? Because players can't be wizards, there would be no elves, dwarves, giants and trolls, flying castles or other wondrous and fantastical things? Am I reading you correctly (and no, this isn't snark, I'm trying to pin down your reasoning. I am not judging.)
Quote from: Christopher Brady;933249OK, so if the players can't have magic, you assume that no one else, or not even the world, can be magical? Because players can't be wizards, there would be no elves, dwarves, giants and trolls, flying castles or other wondrous and fantastical things? Am I reading you correctly (and no, this isn't snark, I'm trying to pin down your reasoning. I am not judging.)
As a player I wouldn't play in such a campaign as I love to play magic user types. I guess it's a corollary, but as a GM I have no interest in such, too mundane for me, and at least half my players want to play spell users. So pretty much a no go for us even if magic is common in the world and for NPCs.
I do prefer low to medium though. That is spell use and effects that while handy in a tactical situation are not situated to act as technology in the larger world. For example, few if any permanent magical spells, limited types of magic that can be put into magic items, barriers to using magic for large scale construction or infrastructure, etc. Primarily because I like to carry the use of magic to it's logical conclusion, instead of by fiat say in a world with a permanent continual light spell that people still light their streets and homes with torches and lamps.