Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. With all of the excitement brewing around our impending Lord of the Rings Roleplaying campaign, there is one thorn in the rosebush to deal with. To quote the sourcebook, “Magic in Middle-Earth is rare.” So rare in fact that initially I was somewhat confused by the exclusion of spellcasting classes, or Callings as they’ve renamed them, and spent a good half-hour furiously thumbing through the sourcebook trying to find them. However, with a good night’s rest and a little thought it started to dawn on me.
Magic as we know it in D&D is different from the magic you encounter in books and movies. Spellcasters in D&D generally grow more confident, revered, and wildly powerful, while the ones we read about are often unsure of their power, feared or shunned by the populace, and taxed mentally and/or physically by the hidden cost of channeling arcane energies. In some places, like Middle-Earth, wizards and their ilk are strange, mysterious folk. Real magic is something that is far removed from people’s daily lives.
Having to wrestle with a truly low-magic campaign, I began to think of it this way. What truly makes magic special is how rare it is. Now, some players enjoy a magic-heavy style, and that’s cool, but I thought I’d throw out some tips to make magic something special in your campaigns by making it more rare. As always, and especially with something like this, make sure your players are onboard for whatever you’ve planned.
Feared & Shunned by the Populace
It’s fairly common for people to mistrust things they don’t understand. That mistrust can easily rise into fear or violence when a crowd of people are involved. The power that spellcasters wield is something that can be polarizing for the inhabitants of your world, like Rand al’Thor from Robert Jordan’s wonderful Wheel of Time series. As one of the few men that can wield the One Power, he is both hunted and helped by members of the Aes Sedai, a matriarchal order made up of women who can wield the One Power and fear the rise of another Dragon Reborn.
This is a great way to ratchet up the drama and tension in your campaign. It forces magic users to weigh the situation when you’re in a village or town, rather than just fireball the first bad guy they see. Great opportunity for some serious roleplaying. You can even add in NPC factions whose mission it is to either support the use of magic or hunt it down, much like Robert Jordan’s Aes Sedai.
Cursed by the Power
The endurance and strength of will that is required to channel arcane energy can be overwhelming to many spellcasters. Whether it’s the physical drain of their own energy to call it forth or the mental strain required to control their power, they teeter at a line between exhaustion and insanity. In one of my favorite movies, Ray Harryhausen’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, the evil magician Koura’s body slowly withers throughout the story as he casts more and more spells. There is a cost to be paid for the magic, beyond the spoken incantation.
There are a couple simple ways to add this to your upcoming campaign. First, magic can require a physical cost, specifically higher level spells. For example, much like Concentration checks, you can add a Constitution check when casting spells higher than say 5th level. Failure doesn’t cause the spell to fail, but the spellcaster takes damage equal to the spell’s level. We don’t want it to be deadly, just enough to signify the physical drain and give the spell casting some weight. Second, magic can require a mental cost. Tying spell casting to a mechanic like Sanity points, much like the fantastic horror TTRPG Call of Cthulhu, can add some drama to your party interaction as the wizard wrestles with madness as they acquire more and more power.
Cloistered or Hunted?
In some places, those who can wield magic are forced to attend a school to help to learn how to harness their abilities. In many of those cases, they have little to no choice, as those who chose to practice magic outside of the school’s purview are hunted as apostates. In our current Dragonlance campaign, the world of Krynn follows this very path. Those who want to become wizards must attend the Towers of High Sorcery and take its uber-deadly test, or be faced with the prospect of running from the school’s operatives as a rogue magic user.
Many examples of schools of magic are out there, including Hogwarts from the wildly popular Harry Potter series and the aforementioned Towers of High Sorcery from the Dragonlance series. There may even be some already in the campaign you’re developing. Give them a little character – are they pro-wizard or for the control of wizards? Benevolent or malicious? Not only are they good factions to fill out your story, they are a great way to give your spellcasters an identity and a purpose. Much like my first tip, this can add some drama in large social situations where the spellcaster is unsure who might be watching, or lead to a combat encounter with operatives sent to bring you back to school.
Magic Can Be Uncontrollable
Anyone who has ever wielded a Wand of Wonder in D&D, or seen one wielded, can attest to the uncontrollable nature of magic. Entrusting god-like powers to mere mortal hands can lead to unexpected results. Just because someone learned the Fireball spell doesn’t mean they’ve mastered it. Rand al’Thor from The Wheel of Time is once again a good example of this idea. He isn’t sure how to use the power of the Dragon Reborn and when he does it comes out in unexpected ways.
Obviously, we already have the Wild Magic Sorcerer to add unpredictable shenanigans to our campaigns, but what if you could add something less drastic than a Fireball centered on the caster? Flip Concentration checks to the beginning of spells, using the spell’s level instead of damage you’re taking. On a failure, another spell of the same level is cast instead. That way you can add fun and unpredictability, without a bunch of friendly fire.
Only Magic Items and Rituals
In Middle-Earth, there aren’t true wizards and spellcasters. Saruman and the rest of the White Council are, in reality, angels sent to help the people. But there is a subtler magic in items and in the old lore. I thought Peter Jackson did a good job with showing how even the simplest of spells cast by Gandalf, Saurman, etc. required lengthy incantations or access to magic items. There’s no casting Cure Wounds on your companion during a battle here – spells take time or require a focus, like a ring or staff.
For our upcoming Lord of the Rings Roleplaying campaign, this is the way that I’m bringing enough magic to Middle-Earth to keep players happy and engaged, but not so much that the real story of a company of friends journeying together is lost in a sea of Fireballs. Instead of traditional spellcasting, the players will find items and inscriptions that contain bits of the old magic that they can use. You can create an index that contains magic items and ritual spells that might be found in your campaign, then let the players slowly discover the wonder of magic.
Final Thoughts
Low magic campaigns can be a difficult sell to your players, but if your table is adventurous enough to give some of these tips a shot, they may find that they like it. So many of our campaigns can get lost in high fantasy tropes as magic flows freely, but making it just a little more rare can keep the players focused and lead to greater wonder when magic does occur. Let us know in the comments what you think. What are some of the ways you make magic special in your campaigns?
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