I know most people on Veeky Forums want to make their fantasy setting word for word like Tolkien or 'low fantasy like...

I know most people on Veeky Forums want to make their fantasy setting word for word like Tolkien or 'low fantasy like game of thrones!' but what about settings where Wizards are relatively common?

The more common the wizards are, the more commonplace magic is. The more commonplace magic is, the more boring it is.

Just look at things like Forgotten Realms to see how well it turns out.

game of thrones is high fantasy you dumbasses should be banned

Yeah. It has more overt magic in it than Lord of the Rings

>Forgotten Realms

Yeah, but that's using a shitty system, overpowered system for Wizards. Ebberon has magic being common and is wildly regarded by Veeky Forums.

Having magic be common is not the problem, it's just so long as you keep its power level and usage restricted. Having every village stocked with a wise man or two with a few little spells to help with the harvest and to entertain the children is not making magic 'boring', it's making it believable that people would use it for its intended purposes.

By that logic, every FPS ever made is boring as hell, because everyone has a gun.

Bad analogy. All you can do with a gun is shoot people, it has far less versatility than magic. Magic is often used as a way to short cut potential problems, dangers, and risks that the DM can throw at the players.

i always make m settings with the assumption that the PCs are not special and that there is always bigger fish

so it ends with magitek all over the place, and the prospect of fighting a giant magical robot at higher levels

Guns have plenty of variation. Long/short range. Rate of fire vs. single-shot damage. Area of effect. Armor penetration vs. damage against unarmored targets. One of the reasons Doom is so good is that all its weapons have a use and a particular situation they're best suited to.

Even disregarding that, magic being able to circumvent any challenge the DM could possibly present is more of a problem with D&D and its "Every wizard can do everything" system than it is with magic being commonplace. Magic can be common while still having individual wizards be limited.

>Guns have plenty of variation
>they can shoot in all kinds of ways
>this is the same kind of versatility as fucking magic

You're an idiot.

Nigga you are fucking dumb.

Guns might be varied but it's variation on a very narrow theme. You point it, you shoot it and something in front of it gets damaged. Everything else is variations on this theme. Even the Unicorn Rainbow Ass Laser.

Magic, although it usually has to remain internally consistent to a setting, does not have such a limited range of causes and outcomes.

I'm going to ignore the silliness of your entire first paragraph and instead skip to
>Magic can be common while still having individual wizards be limited.

No it can't, because then the party wizard will bitch and moan about not being able to perform that magic themselves

>tfw no one likes plain old Sword-and-Sorcery settings where the most powerful wizards are evil and nobles are inbred as fuck

>You will never be able to run a medieval fantasy game with grit in it without it being compared to Game of Thrones
>You will never be able to run a medieval fantasy game as-is without it being compared Forgotten Realms
>You will never be able to have elves or dwarves in your game without them being compared to Tolkien's
>You will never be able to have monstrous orcs because Warcraft memed them into being misunderstood noble savages

What a horrible time to play RPGs.

>The more commonplace magic is, the more boring it is.

Bullshit. Ubiquitous magic can be awesome, it just needs to be done right.

...

i love ubiquitous magic
something about magic being everywhere and being used for even mundane purposes really fills me with wonder, like i really am in another world

>it has far less versatility than magic.
>does not have such a limited range of causes and outcomes.

I think peoples problem is that they believe
>magic is not real therefore there are universal rules therefore it can do anything

My setting has one continent where magic and magical creatures are fairly common due to a massive magical event that occurred there millennia ago infecting the land. The southern continent is very anti-magic, with the rare few born with powers often ostracised and forced into the courts. I generally enjoy a lower fantasy style of RP as I'm a bit history nut, but it's fun for my players to play one that has low fantasy with lots of magic rather than just high flying fantasy all the time. It's closer to The Witcher than LOTR.

Yeah. It's part of what makes a setting really feel like a fantasy setting, embracing the idea that this is an unreal world that works in a distinctly different way, as opposed to 'otherwise realistic medieval europe except dragons'

You mean Eberron?

Depends on the type of magic in the setting. Unless of course you are talking about D&D again.

Say if there is no permanent magic without wizards paying by their own life-force setting can have a lot of spellcasters without magic items being prevalent. Because making magic items means literally transforming yourself into a sickly husk.

Well the exact capabilities of magic would depend on the setting.

However gun = shoots things universally because if it were otherwise it would not be a gun.

>but what about settings where Wizards are relatively common?


Rowling plz

>but what about settings where Wizards are relatively common?

Relatively is relative.

Ars Magica – wizards are 'relatively common' from the players or the game's perspective, since even though there aren't that many in the setting, every single player plays at least one of them, and they are relatively super powerful even early on compared to mundane folks.

Numenera – there are no wizards or magic per se, but nanos are essentially wizards, and you simply can't throw a stone and not hit someone or something that hasn't got a science-fantastically-magical property or twelve.

Wow

Planescape is like this.