Does anyone have tips on how to make a low magic world for DW (where magic is rare and subtle, but mystical and…

Does anyone have tips on how to make a low magic world for DW (where magic is rare and subtle, but mystical and…

Does anyone have tips on how to make a low magic world for DW (where magic is rare and subtle, but mystical and powerful.) Like Conan or LOTR. Something most don’t concern themselves with or comprehend. Thx for the help!

18 thoughts on “Does anyone have tips on how to make a low magic world for DW (where magic is rare and subtle, but mystical and…”

  1. Yeah, so I’ve been running a Conan flavored DW game for a bit and it’s really hard. DW characters are extremely capable and the Wizard and Cleric classes really don’t fit.

    I’d say the best recommendation is to look at World of Dungeons (especially Turbo, though you’ll need to borrow the Wizard abilities from classic WoDu). Players and NPC’s are on about the same level. Magic involves summoning and binding demons. Rituals are a thing you can do with project clocks, etc.

    Classic:

    onesevendesign.com – http://www.onesevendesign.com/dw/world_of_dungeons_1979_bw.pdf

    Turbo:

    http://onesevendesign.com/breakers_wodu_turbo.pdf

    Planar Codex:

    http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110283/Dark-Heart-of-the-Dreamer

    Alternately, I’d be willing to workshop some moves for a custom wizard class with you here. How do you see magic working in your game? What does it look like “on screen?” What makes it “Low Fantasy?”

  2. Apocalypse World reskins into something pretty close. Vincent made reskinned versions of the main playbooks under the name “Fallen Empires”.

  3. Dylan Green Thanks for thee resources. I’m familiar with W.O.D., but turbo is new to me. I’m liking alot of the vibes, (might alter or tone down the sci Fi universe mash part) but mechanics and character generation/archtypes are Fantastic! I love class free Archtype centered character generation.

  4. Turbo offers a different (I’d say better) gear system as well as Strain as a sort of player resource to push your self when it really matters.

    When I run WoDu these days I run Turbo, but with Classic stats, gear, and general fiction. I also use Heritage moves from Planar Codex (which are AMAZING).

  5. Gerard Snow search for The City of Judas. I think it could be perfect, for you. I have it, I read it long ago, but I never had the chance to play it. I think it’s pretty cheap.

  6. If you wanted to try a different system The Riddle of Steel RPG was specifically meant to be set in the conan world. Magic is rare but super powerful. The combat can take a while so I would only play with 2 or 3 players. The books are out of print but I’ve really enjoyed the game in the past. I’ll see if I can find my pdfs.

  7. another idea is grimworld, which is just a DW supplement with alternate playbooks, it’s still fairly epic, but in a”subtler” way.

    or just changing the wizard and cleric classess to be far less “powerful”, but also making what they do extremely difficult to achive without thier abilities.

    for example: sure the cleric can only heal under specific circumstances, but other than that you can sit at home for a month and wait for your wounds to heal, like everyone else, or buy a health poition for 200gold of you have the money.

    and sure the wizard can only do little things with thier magic, but it’s still magic, it’s so rare that almost no one knows how it works and definitely not ready to defend against it.

    and the power that lies within cantrips is huge (blind your enemies with light, trip a charging bull with your unseen servent, make the villagers who never saw magic before believe your illusion is the voice of a powerful diety)

    a lot of the buety of AC and DW comes from how flexible the meaning of things can be

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