Post by DM Exitium on Mar 17, 2018 14:36:32 GMT
This episode was dripping with great ideas so lets get right into the meat [cue the track - sorry Justin]
First - defining "low fantasy" vs "high fantasy"
Second - Plot hooks
As a player and DM in mostly high-fantasy games, these tips come flavored differently to me, as I feel you could use many of the same tips/tricks in your high-fantasy settings by just scaling it up to match the setting. For example, The Walking Dead is more about people than the zombies these days. Eventually you can make the high-magic desensitized to your players, and your PCs and NPC's can be the focus of the campaign rather than the magic of the setting itself. I typically do this with the Dragonball Z moral of "There is ALWAYS someone out there stronger than you and your little adventuring band"
What are your guys thoughts on the episode?
First - defining "low fantasy" vs "high fantasy"
- Calvin and Andrew bounced around 2 different concrete definitions of low-fantasy, Andrew with gritty realism, feeling modern and familiar to us as the players/DM, whereas Calvin countered saying Tolkein's hobbits and Hogwart's infrastructure were quite normal for British folks at that time and could therefore fit into Andrew's definition of "low-fantasy".
- Therefore Calvin's low-fantasy definition was that of reducing societal infrastructure. This can take the form of removing money/capitalism, shops and magic items of course, removing organized governments and a return to role-playing out true hunter-gatherer survivalist problems. In this type of setting, social ties become more important and each and every item holds a relevance to the story somehow.
- Game of Thrones was brought up as a classic trigger of "ITS LOW" and your friends shouting back at you "NO ITS HIGH FANTASY!". There are far too many zombies, dragons, faceless assassins, tree wizards and possibly Cthulu to let it fit . The premise set in season 1 gives a "low fantasy" vibe while the campaign as a whole is a re-discovering of the high fantasy that had always been there
Second - Plot hooks
- People will always be superstitious, so Magic may still exist and rumors of a crazy wizard outside of town might be plot-hook. Whether or not that magic is real is the big mystery, and if it isn't actually magic how does this person make themselves seem magical such that superstition arises around them?
- An item with some power to it, and discovering more about the history of the item unlocks more of its power!
- Session 0 determining which player is the kid in town with the weird birthmark or other oddity, where the other players might be their parents, the weird hermit outside of town with a super awesome secret about said kid is another player, etc. Determining these story connections before building characters helps the players be the plot hooks themselves!
As a player and DM in mostly high-fantasy games, these tips come flavored differently to me, as I feel you could use many of the same tips/tricks in your high-fantasy settings by just scaling it up to match the setting. For example, The Walking Dead is more about people than the zombies these days. Eventually you can make the high-magic desensitized to your players, and your PCs and NPC's can be the focus of the campaign rather than the magic of the setting itself. I typically do this with the Dragonball Z moral of "There is ALWAYS someone out there stronger than you and your little adventuring band"
What are your guys thoughts on the episode?