Troll Lord Games

Hi all...

I'm just curious if anyone has ever played any fantasy RPG with no magic. I know that high magic and low magic (and all the in-betweens) are popular... but has anyone ever run or played in a game that had no magic? I'm not sure it would even be fun... but it's an interesting idea (possibly)... warriors of all types, rogues... even "healers" who specialize in knowing what herbs and natural remedies can help to heal injuries... but no magic... no spells... no magic items... nuttin'.

I've been playing PnP RPGs for over 30 years now and I've never played in a fantasy RPG with no magic...

Anyone have any experiences with that type of campaign?

There's Iron Heros. I've read the book but never played it. It seems cool, though.

Did it once ~30 years ago. Got kinda boring as you eliminate all magical monsters, treasure, everything.

I've never played a NO-magic RPG myself - well, not a "fantasy" one anyway. There are, of course, sci-fi/superhero RPGs, but magic is simulated with technology and superpowers (or even psionics), so they still have the "magic element." I think magic (or its RPG analogs) is what sets the game apart from what would otherwise be normal life. Certainly you can role play a game where, perhaps, the characters themselves do not have magic powers, but their antagonist will be something magical or supernatural (i.e. X-Files, Zombie Apocalypse, Post Nuclear Holocaust mutant monsters, etc.). In short, in order to set the game apart from what would otherwise be mundane life, some sort of magic/technology/supernatural element should exist. There are pure medieval RPGs, which focus on community development or international warfare (or even the spread of religion, in the case of Holy Lands), but I just don't see the appeal. I read fantasy and sci-fi and role play these genres because of how they are different from normal life. Take away the magic element, and I can't see them being nearly as much fun.

P.S. Holy Lands might be a bad example, because some might argue that it also contains a strong supernatural/mythological element.

Yeah, what Redwulf said. That's why i never understood the appeal of d20 Modern.... Ok, let's RP normal life, go to work, get stuck in traffic... huh?
(I'm sure I'm misrepresenting what the game is all about)

Relaxo wrote:Yeah, what Redwulf said. That's why i never understood the appeal of d20 Modern....

P&P (Papers & Paychecks)

Well, that would depend on how you define magic. In one respect, my entire campaign is entirely magic free. But from the perspective of an outside character from a more primitive culture, it would be considered highly magical. Flying airships, extraordinary abilities via applied metaphysics, ect ect.

I've not gamed in a magic-free fantasy world, but I've read there and I've written there. In fact, on this week's Writing Excuses, Ellen Kushner talked about magic-free second-world fantasy lit. If you wanted a game of intrigue, you could do worse than gaming in the world of Swordspoint.

Relaxo wrote:(I'm sure I'm misrepresenting what the game is all about)

And where would online debate be if we weren't allowed to do that?

Our group played a Pendragon campaign for a while that had no magic in it other than the "wise woman's" healing poultices and such. It certainly was a more lethal game...a wild boar could do you in in short order easily. Made things rather exciting in a tense sort of way. (are we gonna die this time or what.) However, it does slow the pace of the campaign down considerably when you sometimes have to wait weeks in game time to properly heal.

Well I’ve played various “historic” era games that were VERY low-no magical. At least in the mindset that there were no fireball throwing mages and insta healing Clerics in the game. There were various wise woman/oracles etc around an a few priests, but they did not adventure. However, there were “historic” (at least in a mythical way) monsters. Also there were “magical” weapons that we did find, so it wasn’t 100% magic free.

I had a blast, but it did slow down the campaign when the party would get beat up and needed healing etc. However, that did add to the fun and make it important for the party to understand that at times you need to RUN AWAY from the dragon/hydra etc. Plus it made the times the players chose to sacrifice themselves for the party fall into the epic death arena. Nothing like a hero knight knowing that the fight they were riding into was a fight that couldn't be won, but someone had to hold the pass and slow the bad guys so that village could be warned and readied for the coming battle in time. True Hero role-playing there

Go0gleplex wrote:Our group played a Pendragon campaign for a while that had no magic in it other than the "wise woman's" healing poultices and such. It certainly was a more lethal game...a wild boar could do you in in short order easily. Made things rather exciting in a tense sort of way. (are we gonna die this time or what.) However, it does slow the pace of the campaign down considerably when you sometimes have to wait weeks in game time to properly heal.

Rgr on that, I played Pendragon and loved it, but we had a little more magic than that. But yeah, exciting to go into a fight and know that you could die and if you lived you'd need weeks to heal.

Great posts... I think it would be a bit boring myself. I too have the D20 modern book (but have never played) and I found it to be a boring concept without some type of "magic"/"psychic"/"super"/whatever element to it.

I've never read Iron Heroes... so I may look into that.

Healing would definitely be the big bottleneck in a truly no-magic campaign. Waiting for major surgery, or natural healing could really put a damper on the campaign.

I guess I won't wipe magic from the face of Aihrde in our semi-regular campaign (I know there are several readers here who are happy to hear that)

I tried this once and the fun seemed to wear off in a hurry. I guess the main feeling was that the best part of role playing was getting to do things you can't do in real life.

Funny, because I've run science fiction games without magic. And spy games. And wild west games. Somehow when you move into the swords & sorcery genre you need to have both swords and sorcery.

Wouldn't fantasy with out magic be medieval simulation?

I think each game needs it's fantastic elements to make it fun.

In my opinion design looms mightily here. I've run Burning Wheel with zero magic and it worked very, very well. I've also run old school games with no magic but it took some perspective shifting with things like each player having multiple characters in play but not necessarily all at once. It was very successful and also very different.

Like everyone else here (Or, so it seems.) it never occurred to me to run a fantasy setting without magic. There was always some kind of "fantastical" element to them. I have played rpg's of other genre's that have no magic or super-technology or some kind of twist to the real world. A western setting, a cop/detective/spy type or a war setting (Like WW2).

I played GURPS for awhile, and they have an entire setting with expansions of WW2 as well as supplements for a detective type game play, no magical stuff or anything that strayed from what it was.

Precis Intermedia Games has; Mean Streets that I ran a very successful cop/detective campaign that was filled with excitement.

I do agree that most people play rpg's because they don't want to play in a mundane world, that they can get by walking out their door.

What I did find was that although the characters where always above average or hero types and central to the game, the setting became more important and needed more fleshing out and the GM needed to really make NPC's stand out and have ability to explain the game to the players, in a way that they should get out of their comfort zone and realize that car chases, gun fights and detective work can be just as fun as slinging fireballs.

Handled right a more mundane rpg can be just as fun.

Sides, its not like the real world doesn't have its fair share of the fantastical and inexplicable. It seems counter-intuitive to want to remove such elements from a game setting. To modern sensibilities, removing 'magic' might make sense, but to the mindset of the time folks most try and emulate, magic and supernatural influences were everywhere. And who's to say they weren't right?

I suggest taking a look at Green Ronin's Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, which does a great job of representing a setting that lacks magic in everyday life. It focuses heavily on the noble houses (the default play style sets the player group up as a minor noble house) and has excellent rules for intrigue, combat and other interactions that don't require magic.

For what it's worth, the section on creating the noble houses is quite excellent and with a little adaptation could be easily used in other milieus (for example, it would lend itself quite well to Anglamay/Kleves/etc. region of Aihrde.)

I'd say a 'no magic' medieval rpg is like non-alcoholic beer: It's for those who don't like getting drunk, but just enjoy pissing.

A non-magical medieval rpg would hold no interest for me or my group. We like fantasitcal settings. Fantasy medieval, Sci-Fi, Superhero, etc. If it doesn't have some form of 'otherness', its just "Pencils and Paychecks".

No magic, or ultra-low magic? What I mean by ultra-low would be something akin to Tolkien's Middle Earth. There is just enough magic to bring about a bit of the fantastic, orcs, giant eagles, balrogs, wraiths, magic rings, and magic blades, but no real PC spell casters.

As was mentioned by Go0gleplex, I also played Pendragon, it was fun, but it was a different style of gaming, not just an RPG without magic. All things considered, we dropped it since we did like the fantastic to be in our fantasy roleplaying.

On the other hand, I will disagree on the no-magic/psionic/etc. modern or near future style of games. I'll touch on that a little later...

I think a low magic setting would fly or fail depending on the players and the GM. If that's what they want to play, and they fully understand the ramifications of no magic (or low magic) then I'd say they're ahead of the game. But even if they go into willingly, they might find it not as fulfilling as they may have imagined. No magic would be an interesting concept, for certain, but one I would personally find a little dull after a while. But I'm the type of person that likes some magic in my games. I like the fact that C&C has only four casting classes in the game. And two of those in my campaign (druids and illusionists) are rather rare. Many monsters that have magical abilities would cease to exist, or would exist without their abilities. Some of those monsters would lose a bit of their luster if they lost some of their abilities.

I think it would work, in the end, but unless you're prepared for it, a big whole would be in the campaign that would have to be filled for something. Rewards, for example. Money's nice, and so are lands, titles, precious stones and objects of art. But a magical sword, a magical staff or ring are staples of the fantasy game that I'd have a hard time doing without. I won't say the game's focus would have to be on something different, but the absence of magic would definitely get some attention after a while. And not necessarily good attention, I would fear.

Don't get me wrong, I've run some very low magic games. My C&C Conan game has virtually no magic weapons (and when there are, they are plot points) and I disallow the sorcerer class as a PC class, so there is no PC spell casting. But, there are demons, evil sorcerer's, fantastical beasts, and other tropes of Swords & Sorcery.

I ran my C&C Greyhawk campaign with a lower-end magic level. The campaign took place in Verbobonc, and the three highest level mages in the realm were around 8th level. Magic was special, not common. There were no magic guilds. My players gnome wizard had to be an apprentice of one of the above mentioned three wizards. Most +1 weapons were masterwork, not magical. Magic weapons had names and histories.

I actually prefer low magic games. That being said, I like there to be magic, just not common (because then its no longer magic, its tech).

Lord of the Rings is a low magic world when you think about it. Sure there are tons of supernatural creatures and what not but almost no magic users and what magic does exist is very subtle.