Are there any gritty and lethal settings in D&D or other RPGs that are also high magic?
I kind of want to make something like that for a campaign but if there's already something out there I can just use that.
Normally high magic would sound like a 4E style game where you're always kicking ass and taking names, but I think it could be interesting to have a grittier game. It might be impossible in a high magic game though.
Warhammer Fantasy is an often overlooked high-magic setting, in that magic plays a very major role in the game world and in adventures. And it's gritty as fuck. You might have a gritty Game of Thrones RPG where the characters never encounter any magic, in Warhammer the characters will encounter magic and probably utilize it themselves.
Glorantha using RuneQuest is about the apex of gritty and high magic. The combat rules have spears impaling and limbs flying, and pretty much every character has access to magic, which is woven into the very fabric of the setting. Magical buffs are huge, and you've got lightning bolts from the sky, characters flying around, interacting with gods in Hero Quests .... It's very different in flavour from Warhammer, but it's its own special blend of true grit and pervasive magic, if you like that sort of thing.
The Old World from Warhammer and Melniboné from Stormbringer are what first come to mind. Both have powerful magic that is horrific and dangerous, but which profoundly shapes their worlds and enables fantastical, perilous adventures.
Any gritty post-magical-apocalypse settings? I can imagine The Terminator as War Against the Golems.
My Majestic Wilderlands is gritty and has lots of magic.
http://www.batintheattic.com/majesticwilderlands.php
The two main tricks I use are: made magic part of the culture of the setting and a culture in of itself. In my case there are various magical orders that integrate in their home cultures in a variety of ways. The second trick is that divine magic is superior to arcane magic. However clerics have limits in that they are not free agents in the way mages are. They have to follow the will of their religion in order to have divine power to begin with.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;878363Are there any gritty and lethal settings in D&D or other RPGs that are also high magic?
Non-native English speaker here, so have patience, please. ;]
One thing I learned is that no two people follow exactly the same definition of certain terms to the letter, and therefore rather than using keywords it's far better to give examples of what you're looking for - books, movies, etc.
Take "High Magic" for example. It might be "
everyone farts fireballs", but also "
it's not that everyone farts fireballs, in fact there's only one, special caste that deals with magic, but man, when they fart, it's enough to kill Tarrasque, also: everyone wears at least 10 pounds of magic artifacts all the time".
Then, there's "gritty". Gritty, in addition to "unforgiving" might be understood as "serious" - "
no such bullshit as magical races outside of small, secluded enclaves/ghettos, economy is strong and realistic", but it may mean "
sure, you can meet elves and other half-unicorns, half-snotlings in every inn, but the world is balancing on the verge of destruction, it's countdown to Armageddon, so no joking around, guys".
That being said: ARS MAGICA or HARNMASTER might be up your alley. You can also try some "more serious" settings for... bear with me... Pathfinder. MIDGARD is one (it's practically WFRP for PFRPG), so is AMETHYST (fantasy meets SF).
You can also check BURNING WHEEL (with MAGIC BURNER supplement) - I dislike books, because I feel they are poorly written, but the game itself is quite ok.
Quote from: S'mon;878384Any gritty post-magical-apocalypse settings? I can imagine The Terminator as War Against the Golems.
Ditto.
Depending on how you understand gritty/high magic, in addition to MIDGARD/PFRPG, good old DARKSUN matches your criteria. Depending on how much magic your group agrees to allow, you might try DESOLATION (Ubiquity).
Quote from: S'mon;878384Any gritty post-magical-apocalypse settings? I can imagine The Terminator as War Against the Golems.
Ditto.
Depending on how you understand gritty/high magic, DARKSUN matches your criteria. Depending on how much magic your group agrees to allow you might also try DESOLATION (Ubiquity).
The Black Company Campaign Setting by Green Ronin. It's made for 3.x. It's almost a full game by itself with classes, the prototype for the True Sorcery magic system, and a combat system that has been tuned so that straight up fights might take some time, but ambushes can be instantly deadly. It's not bad.
I suppose it all boils down to how you define "grit" — from a gut-feeling perspective, I tend to agree with Glorantha (at least as presented in Runequest), The Old World (WFRP, at least as presented from 2e on) and the Young Kingdoms (Stormbringer/Elric), because those are all games with high-magic settings and brutal combat rules.
For D&D, I dare say Dark Sun fits the bill, even if arcane magic is relatively rare; but there seems to be plenty of divine magic and psionics going around.
Eberron slightly fits this. It's definitely high magic, and on he other hand, it is much grittier than standard fare D&D as Raise Dead is practically unheard of.
Ars Magica is gritty and high magic. A beginning player character can level a castle with a single spell, if he is build accordingly, and if you are a mage, you can solve almost all your problems with magic. But characters are easily injured, and injuries take a long time to heal, and they get worse if not treated.
Role Master. Very gritty, I almost died of exposure, our NPC guide was competly fried by a fire ball, healing takes along time. There is magic to do it but it still takes a long time, just not quite as long.
Elves, dragons, wizards. It's an old system and can be a bit clunky. But the critical tables are the most leathal, gritty and gruesome I have ever seen.
When you say gritty high magic, are wizards getting lynched by the towns folk in years of drought?
I was actually thinking of "gritty" in the sense of dangerous, high lethality. Not grimdark, though all of the mentioned settings so far are good.
But I can't think of a setting that LOOKS like your colorful high fantasy action romp with magic everywhere but gameplay wise is actually very dangerous.
Usually you only have one or the other.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;878609I was actually thinking of "gritty" in the sense of dangerous, high lethality. Not grimdark, though all of the mentioned settings so far are good.
But I can't think of a setting that LOOKS like your colorful high fantasy action romp with magic everywhere but gameplay wise is actually very dangerous.
Usually you only have one or the other.
High Magic =/= High Fantasy. ;]
I'm kind of lost now. I mean: I don't see what the problem is. Take any given High Fantasy game, raise the difficulty bar by introducing either more stronger opponents or use solutions like "Tucker's Kobolds" (intelligent enemies) and you're done.
Take Darksun for example: do not hesitate to throw a stubborn Rampager stalker-hunter against considerably low level party, when they travel through gorges of some rocky region, or make sure that Silt Horrors spawn just everywhere (including the middle of cities) and you have both High Fantasy and dangerous world.
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/55/00/3a/55003a3e8bef94da9fd6bf91fb0cc706.jpg)
Same goes for every other high fantasy setting.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;878609I was actually thinking of "gritty" in the sense of dangerous, high lethality. Not grimdark, though all of the mentioned settings so far are good.
But I can't think of a setting that LOOKS like your colorful high fantasy action romp with magic everywhere but gameplay wise is actually very dangerous.
Usually you only have one or the other.
Can't you get that with any magic system by nerfing, removing, restricting, limiting etc. the healing (especially restoration/revival/ressurrection) magic (and maybe the defense or buff magic)?
I guess some game systems also make all violence easy to survive, by giving piles or hit points, attacks that do girly-man damage, troll-like regeneration for every PC, easy mundane revival, or even certain games which say the PCs only have setbacks at worst, and will eventually prevail.
Quote from: Rincewind1;878419Eberron slightly fits this. It's definitely high magic, and on he other hand, it is much grittier than standard fare D&D as Raise Dead is practically unheard of.
It's meant to be pulpier than out and out gritty. Which in my PERSONAL opinion, D&D can't do in general.
I will echo the Old World from Warhammer Fantasy is pretty High Magic.
Quote from: S'mon;878384Any gritty post-magical-apocalypse settings? I can imagine The Terminator as War Against the Golems.
EARTHDAWN!
QuoteThe trolls raid the dwarfs,
the dwarfs dislike the elves,
the elves have no patience with the humans,
and the humans war with each other.
- But everyone hates the [strikeout]Atlanteans[/strikeout] THERANS.
I will link a story from the early FASA days of Earthdawn ("Ship of Horrors") that really sets the tone of the world (note the term 'Warlock' was changed to 'Adept' before the game released, like the Atlanteans/Therans shift). A quick aside about the Horrors:
http://pandagaminggrove.blogspot.in/2012/09/earthdawn-part-7-horrors.html
QuoteThe most insidious and dangerous things in Earthdawn are the Horrors. Completely alien and unknowable, they come from deep astral space to feed on fear and pain. Infinite shapes and sizes, and powers that even dragons fear. While the magic levels have dropped considerably, Horrors are still present, ravenous and deadly.
Horrors are intrinsic to the setting, representing the greatest threat to Namegivers (besides themselves) and adepts will expend considerable resources, including their lives, to free the world from their presence.
...
The standard of the power and fear Horror's wield is through their Mark. It is a stain upon your Pattern and each is unique, the fingerprint of the Horror. They can be detected through careful scrutiny with astral sight. Through this Mark a Horror can influence you, tempt you, hurt you, exert its terrible will on the world through you. Their powers can be used against you or through you against those around you freely and it is nearly impossible to escape their voice as they taunt you endlessly. Some can apply a twisted version of Thread magic directly against your Pattern to plunder your essence and memories, or take control. While you are Marked, no one is safe.
SHIP OF HORRORShttp://www.scribd.com/doc/258650366/Earthdawn-Sizzle-Release-Brochure#page=26
Then, for another take on the world, the earlier story in the brochure about merchants and spies:
THE MERCHANT'S GIFThttp://www.scribd.com/doc/258650366/Earthdawn-Sizzle-Release-Brochure#page=20
Another one of these threads? Ok. Here we go again.
BX D&D Karameikos: Lots of magic and pretty darn lethal! 0HP=DEAD!
AD&D Greyhawk: Fairly high magic and AD&Ds rules were still fairly unforgiving on the dead and near-dead.
2e D&Ds Spelljammer setting was about as high magic as it gets and was pretty darn lethal in the right hands or if the PCs get careless or overconfident.
And people may rag on the Wilderness Survival Guide. But that book with the sheer number of ways to kill characters with good ol' mother nature was vastly under-rated.
Quote from: Omega;878806Another one of these threads? Ok. Here we go again.
BX D&D Karameikos: Lots of magic and pretty darn lethal! 0HP=DEAD!
AD&D Greyhawk: Fairly high magic and AD&Ds rules were still fairly unforgiving on the dead and near-dead.
2e D&Ds Spelljammer setting was about as high magic as it gets and was pretty darn lethal in the right hands or if the PCs get careless or overconfident.
And people may rag on the Wilderness Survival Guide. But that book with the sheer number of ways to kill characters with good ol' mother nature was vastly under-rated.
'Gritty' doesn't mean lethal. And D&D is very video gamey in the sense that unless you hit that 0HP you're completely fine. Not to mention that HP escalate at a pretty hefty rate.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;878815'Gritty' doesn't mean lethal.
"Gritty" is a poorly-defined term which
can mean "lethal", depending on who's using it. In my experience, "lethal" usually seems to be considered a necessary, but not sufficient, component of "gritty".
In this particular case, however, the OP has clarified that he meant it as "dangerous, high lethality." So it
does mean "lethal" in the context of this question.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;878815And D&D is very video gamey in the sense that unless you hit that 0HP you're completely fine. Not to mention that HP escalate at a pretty hefty rate.
Completely agreed. D&D is generally not a good fit for "gritty" (or "lethal") except at low levels.
Except that HP has nothing to do with how "gritty" a setting is. Nor does death spirals, insta-kills, or any of the other methods.
BX is gritty because civilization is on the edge still and life is just one step from ending at every corner.
AD&D with just the books is much the same. Civilization is few and far between and there are ruins freaking everywhere of abandoned or destroyed cities. Civilization sometimes feels like its one orc away from ending. And at the low levels about everyone is still one step away from being killed and eaten by a badger.
Quote from: Omega;878957Except that HP has nothing to do with how "gritty" a setting is. Nor does death spirals, insta-kills, or any of the other methods.
BX is gritty because civilization is on the edge still and life is just one step from ending at every corner.
AD&D with just the books is much the same. Civilization is few and far between and there are ruins freaking everywhere of abandoned or destroyed cities. Civilization sometimes feels like its one orc away from ending. And at the low levels about everyone is still one step away from being killed and eaten by a badger.
Well, that sounds like my Wilderlands of High Fantasy campaign, but running it in 5e there's not a lot of random PC death, I'm not sure I'd call it gritty. Same with the 5e Primeval Thule game I'm playing in, where civilisation is dying before the oncoming ice - getting sanity-blasted just from the sight of Cthuloid monsters is somewhat gritty, but our PCs are more Kull/Conan than Lovecraftian.
That depends on what you think makes a game gritty. It's a term that is used in a lot of different ways. What makes a game gritty to you?
Quote from: JesterRaiin;878615High Magic =/= High Fantasy. ;]
and, often, High Fantasy=/=High Fantasy. When people use the term High Fantasy now they often mean something different from the term as it was originally defined.
Quote from: yosemitemike;879047and, often, High Fantasy=/=High Fantasy. When people use the term High Fantasy now they often mean something different from the term as it was originally defined.
What an amazing set of undefined variables found in a same sentence! Incredible! :D
Quote from: JesterRaiin;879056What an amazing set of undefined variables found in a same sentence! Incredible! :D
What is High Fantasy? Is A Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones a high fantasy setting?
Many people online would say it isn't but by the original definition of the term it is.
Quote from: yosemitemike;879058What is High Fantasy? Is A Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones a high fantasy setting?
Many people online would say it isn't but by the original definition of the term it is.
It's not a jab at your position. I'm simply amazed by the way you expressed it. Truly a sight to behold, and no sarcasm here.
I guess that's the way demons and djinni talk when they want to struck a bargain with foolish mortals. ;]
Talislanta and Atlantis: The Second Age.
Both gritty and scary in terms of their high-magic. Talislanta is a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting where the previous age saw magic literally rip reality to shreds (with a book that outlines and essentially gives you access to that aforementioned magic) - and it's pretty gritty in terms of violence, and setting conceits.
Atlantis is just a wonderful setting where you can go high/low fantasy to your heart's content. The magic is powerful (if you want it to be).
Talislanta is also currently FREEEEEEeeeeeeee
Gritty, to me, is just the mechanics used to show health, recovery, and instant death. In 4e this would be a large reduction to healing surges, when you can initiate a healing surge, and add things like losing limbs, and the length of time it takes to make an Extended Rest. The setting can still be whatever
Quote from: yosemitemike;879047That depends on what you think makes a game gritty. It's a term that is used in a lot of different ways. What makes a game gritty to you?
'Midnight' felt grim & gritty to me - mostly grim, with the sense of hopelessness, frequently getting our butts kicked by the Shadow forces (basically it's a setting where the good races are in the position you normally see the orcs & goblins in) but there was also stuff like us 'heroes' punishing helpless civilians for collaboration with the Shadow. And PC death was easy, cheap & permanent.
Quote from: Omega;878957Except that HP has nothing to do with how "gritty" a setting is. Nor does death spirals, insta-kills, or any of the other methods.
BX is gritty because civilization is on the edge still and life is just one step from ending at every corner.
AD&D with just the books is much the same. Civilization is few and far between and there are ruins freaking everywhere of abandoned or destroyed cities. Civilization sometimes feels like its one orc away from ending. And at the low levels about everyone is still one step away from being killed and eaten by a badger.
I'm not sure what definition of "gritty" you are thinking of. Even if we were just talking about lethality of the combat system, there could be different ways to measure lethality. In past conversations, especially the first times I remember people trying to refer to "gritty" RPGs as a term (30 years ago?) they meant games where play involved many details, such as what supplies do you have, what's available for sale, how is everyone carrying everything, what are you doing about the wind and rain, is your map getting wet, are you rations going bad, who knows whether those mushrooms are edible, etc.
So maybe your definition of grit doesn't relate to hit points, "death spirals" or "insta-kills", but it seems to me such things would be liable to be relevant to some other people's idea of what "gritty" is. That is:
* Not just that there are hit points, but that a sword might do 1d8 damage without chance of higher damage, and its fairly common for a human to have well over 8 HP, so getting hit with a sword once can't be lethal.
* "death spirals" sounds to me like the term people use for effects of injury, when they don't like that the game includes them. Seems to me having effects of injury to consider is what I tend to think of as more "gritty".
* "insta-kills" also sounds a bit like someone talking about the possibility of one attack killing someone, when they don't like that that's possible. Since real weapons tend to be able to do this sometimes, and having to consider that adds a level of uncertainty and danger, that too seems like what I tend to think of as more "gritty" than a game where you can count on surviving any attack.
I also was going to say Midnight. Just think of it as Middle Earth, but Sauron won, and you have to survive.
Gritty to me has two components.
First is tone, a lot of the time the setting is dark, personal, not quite hopeless, but it's very 'dirty'.
Second is mechanical, where limb removal and maiming is a risk.
But that's just me.
Quote from: S'mon;879186'Midnight' felt grim & gritty to me - mostly grim, with the sense of hopelessness, frequently getting our butts kicked by the Shadow forces (basically it's a setting where the good races are in the position you normally see the orcs & goblins in) but there was also stuff like us 'heroes' punishing helpless civilians for collaboration with the Shadow. And PC death was easy, cheap & permanent.
For that sort of setting, there isn't much magic available to the PCs even if t is around in the setting. There are clerics in Midnight but they all worship Izrador. Arcane magic is outlawed. Magic weapons are rare and nearly unavailable to the PCs. There is magic around, You just don't get much of it. Warhammer Fantasy is kind of like that too. There is magic and it can be very powerful but most PCs will never be able to use it.
People use the term gritty in all sorts of different ways so what people consider to be a gritty setting varies quite a bit. It;s hard to say whether there are gritty setting with lots of magic without some idea of what is meant by gritty setting.
Play as mortals in Godbound.
We'd have to assess what we consider 'gritty' and what we consider 'high magic'. You could say Elric, for example, which is pretty gritty, and which features some very powerful magic (though only certain people have it).
The Wilderlands has already been mentioned.
It seems to me that 'gritty and high magic' would fit in a lot of Sword & Sorcery.
As much as I like Mystara, I would say that while Karameikos is high-magic, it's not 'gritty'.
Quote from: RPGPundit;879922As much as I like Mystara, I would say that while Karameikos is high-magic, it's not 'gritty'.
Mystara is anything but gritty. Karameikos was though. Im actually not that fond of Mystara because it removed that "humanity on the edge" feel BXs Karameikos had.
Quote from: Omega;879969Mystara is anything but gritty. Karameikos was though. Im actually not that fond of Mystara because it removed that "humanity on the edge" feel BXs Karameikos had.
That wasn't really my reading of Karameikos. It had something of the frontier, sure, but it didn't feel gritty to me.
Quote from: RPGPundit;880538That wasn't really my reading of Karameikos. It had something of the frontier, sure, but it didn't feel gritty to me.
I guess
Night's Black Terror is quite gritty - most of the TSR UK modules feel fairly gritty compared to US made material, just for cultural reasons.
Aside from In search of the Unknown, Keep on the Borderlands, and Isle of Dread, my experience with BX modules was limited till some time after. The first two in particular set the tone for me of how I perceived Karemeikos. The Lost City just adds to that feeling.
Later modules were more upbeat or at least feel that way after the bleakness of the early stuff.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;878363Are there any gritty and lethal settings in D&D or other RPGs that are also high magic?
'Gritty' suggests to me various kinds of poverty that are probably not associated with "high magic" unless you're in a situation like 'cyberpunk' (the have-heroes surrounded by have-not-norms) or a big war.
As for lethality, that's built in to high-level TSR-era D&D. Wizards themselves are most vulnerable to one-shot kills from other wizards, but violent conflict with near-peers can easily be deadly for any figure, and the span of inferior levels so dangerous grows with increasing level above 'name' level.
Gritty to me is boiled down to this:
Life is cheap.
This doesn't mean that all part of the world is like this. It means that enough of the world is like this where when the PC's encounter it, they feel it viscerally.
And that's just it - gritty has visceral quality to it. Players should feel on edge with moments of much appreciated relief when they have actual sanctuary.
How that all is expressed - regardless of the level of magic (though high-magic powered settings that are gritty can be pretty scary.) is dependent on the other conceits of the setting.
Talislanta, to me, exemplifies this. Outside of the Seven Kingdoms - it's pretty f'ing hardcore. Kang Empire, Beastmen savages, The Rajanistan Empire, lots of death-cults, and crazy ruins of the insanely powerful ancients. And the magic of Talislanta is potentially among the most powerful I've encountered in fantasy RPG's... assuming you let your player's get to that level of play.
Everything is on the table in Talislanta.
Midnight is another good choice. I'd also vote for Ars Magica. Dark Sun too.
Tekumel, Exalted, Glorantha all fit the theme:).
I'll make a recommendation for a new game: Symbaroum is a Swedish RPG set in the aftermath of a great war, the survivors slowly reclaiming an ancient land of dark forests to replace their ruined homeland. Of course the inhabitants of the forest aren't overtly keen on being pushed out by some snotty human upstarts, leading to much adventuring fun in a landscape of deep mistrust in the endless, dark woods.
It's certainly high magic, and it's gritty in the way that the central conflict is more muddy and ambiguous than most orcs vs. human settings, and foolhardy adventurers who go too deep into the forest are more often than not never heard from again. A fun little setting.
Also the art is gorgeous
(http://obskures.de/s/obswpc/uploads/2015/04/symbaroumbarbarianwitches.jpg)
Quote from: AsenRG;880642Tekumel, Exalted, Glorantha all fit the theme:).
Without Tekumel there would be no Talislanta. Good call. Same with Glorantha.
Quote from: tenbones;880657Without Tekumel there would be no Talislanta. Good call. Same with Glorantha.
Thank you:).
I'd have added Talislanta, too, but I never played in the grittiest parts of the setting, and I'd rather stay with what I can confirm.
Also, the Red Tide setting is post-apocalypsis-in-progress and as magic-rich as any D&D setting;).
Dragon Storm falls into the gritty high magic range too. Things are going really badly. So badly that the common folk think the heroes are the cause of all the problems like people and animal mutating into horrors. Also you have areas where the Tox poisons the land, or areas where nature has reclaimed the land so hard that it can actually harm you just by walking through the region due to the concentrated Od.