How Big Is Your World?

Most fantasy tabletop games eventually produce a map that details hundreds of miles of mountains, oceans, and illogically-diverging rivers, oftentimes far beyond actual in-game events and regions. Rarely do they convey the sense of scale obvious to us in a non-Mercator map of the real world. I’ve seen the map of Faerun, the Forgotten Realms setting, many times, but I have no idea how big that world is. 

A good exercise is to take your campaign region – whether that’s a city, country, continent, or world – and scale it against a roughly geographically equivalent part of the real world.

The D&D 5E campaign I have run for years takes place around an ocean dotted with volcanic islands and city-states. Without much consideration, I had been thinking of it as almost an entire hemisphere on a roughly earth-sized planet. But I did the math, and the whole area is roughly equivalent to the Gulf of Thailand plus the Java Sea. A big region in the real world by any measure, but much smaller than I was thinking.

This exercise can be useful for answering a number of questions, like how many nations might compete for control of a region; how far trading partners might reasonably travel; where populations would be heavily concentrated; and so on. 

How Rare is Magic Anyway?

How much magic should PCs expect to see in a medium-level magic setting? Thinking about this, and portraying it consistently in-play, supports the verisimilitude of a fantastic setting. 

A small village is unlikely to have any magic. A medium or large village might have one or two trade magicians associated with the dominant local industry. A mining town could have a trade magician capable of subtly reinforcing the structure of the excavations, or magically detecting gas leaks; while a trade magician at a crossroads town between distant cities would be able to magically influence and guide the carrier pigeons that stop there to rest.

About 1 out of every 1000 sapient creatures is born with some latent magic they can use instinctively. Mechanically, this would be similar to a weaker form of the Magic Initiate Feat, giving the person one random cantrip that they can use a few times per short rest. While tame by adventuring standards, this will make them quite unusual (and possibly dangerous) in the eyes of ordinary people. Latent magic is most frequently a weakened form of sorcery, but cantrips could come from any class (for example, a particularly devout believer might become a minor miracle worker just through the ability to cast Guidance or Spare the Dying).

A small city or equivalent community may have a handful of NPC spellcasters with class levels ranging from 2 to 4. Their spells would focus on divination; among the schools of magic, it scales the best to society-wide problems. Some may also serve as abjurers or conjurers. Evokers, enchanters, and necromancers would be the least common, although cultures vary wildly, and some societies may find a place for these casters. A civilization might also have a similar number of leveled NPCs in martial or skill-based classes, but those will be much less conspicuous for purposes of determining how a society in fantasy adventure world differs from a mundane historical society of similar size.

A kingdom or large city state might have one or two casters at levels 5 to 8. While these are mid-power casters by PC standards, their power would be the apex of known magic to ordinary people. Third-level spells are a breakpoint; a wizard casting fireball a few times a day can turn the tide of small- to medium-sized conflicts almost on their own. A cleric able to cast Revivify would be a priceless asset for an assassination-prone ruler (and never more than a minute away from them, day or night – the ruler’s bedchambers would have an adjoined room in which the cleric slept just for this purpose).

Casters at level 9 and above are mostly absent from society. These people are pursuing objectives far removed from the mundane world. They should almost exclusively be either PCs or antagonists; they should almost never be NPCs without strong, proactive agendas of their own. Even if they have no known rivals, antagonists will seek out casters at such levels simply because their treasure (whether actual or merely rumored) makes them a desirable target. 

Magic Itemization: Attuning to the Results

Previously: Streamlining 5E’s Designs

As much as I don’t care for the fiddliness of 5E’s charged and per-day use magic items, I recognize their purpose. They're meat to serve as a fine-tuning dial, allowing more nuance than the very broad sweep of attunement and expendables.

So some items may benefit from further constraints or complications, beyond just the three buckets of attunement, expendability, and once-per-day use. What else can we do?

Let’s return to Electric Bastionland’s principles for oddities:

1. One use only, disposable.
2. Limited number of charges. 
3. Random chance of depletion on each use. 
4. Large and clunky, or even immobile. 
5. A creature instead of an object. 
6. Requiring a very specific uncommon input, such as a fresh corpse.
7. Occupying a specific part of the body that can’t hold multiple things, like goggles, or gloves.

The middle three guidelines create some new space we can leverage. Below I've listed some thoughts on how we can use them, as well as a few more ideas inspired by the oddities.

Random Chance of Depletion

Similar to a usage die. Generally an improvement on charged items, because there’s no tracking – the chance of depletion always stays the same. Useful for items that have limited uses, but should feel unpredictable.

Large, Clunky, Immobile

Another good one. Think about the difference between finding a traditional crystal ball, as opposed to magical spring that simulates the same effect. The former is a useful magic item with few or no drawbacks. The latter is a resource that calls into question distance and time versus other priorities (“can we afford to visit the spring”?) invites resource trade-offs (“should we Teleport to visit the spring?”) and incentivizes downtime (“think of all the things we can scry if we spend a week at the spring”).

Creature (or Faction)

This can be useful too. Instead of a vial of Oil of Sharpness, how about a seed that grows into a Sword Palm, which produces a 1d2-2 fruit per month that can be drained for equivalent magic that must be used immediately? As with Large, Clunky, Immobile, by de-tool-ifying the magic item, we can incentivize downtime, base-building, and domain creation. Instead of a flying carpet, why not a whistle to signal aarakocra allies who can ferry characters from place to place – at the cost of faction intrigue? Or a temperamental flying mount? Removing the compactness and convenience of the inert item forces choices.

Fragile  

Building on the Electric Bastionland list, I’ll add a few more ideas of my own.

I’m still experimenting with fragility. Fragile objects are somewhat like Random Chance of Depletion, except their termination isn’t tied to their use, but rather exposure to other conditions. 

Consider again the classic crystal ball mentioned above. What if it was as fragile as a fine dining crystal? Even simple combats or environmental hazards become difficult for a PC carrying such an object. Keeping it safe at home – or bringing it into danger – is a legitimate choice. 

The main drawback is the memory load; there has to be a trigger to remind the DM and/or the PC to check if the object breaks in situations where its in danger, but not actively in use.

Attracts Unwanted Attention

Another personal favorite. 5E has a few items like this, but could have more. For example, the Orb of Dragonkind requires a Charisma check; on a failure, it charms its user and can cast Suggestion at will. What does it suggest? Probably to use another one of the orb’s features and call dragons within 40 miles to the PC’s location. Uh-oh.

Cumulative Penalty or Cost

One way to simplify the rules baggage of a charge system is to simply convert the charges into another game currency already in use. An item that imposes a level of exhaustion has a clear and finite number of “charges,” insofar as characters can only take on so much exhaustion before dying. The same is true for hit points, ability score drain, and a dozen other things PCs already care about. Attack the character sheet.

Unpredictable or Uncertain Drawback

If the drawback isn’t cumulative, we should make it uncertain or hard to predict. Why? A fiendish battle axe that grants +2 to Strength and -2 to Wisdom is predictable. It’s a no-brainer for the barbarian who already chose Wisdom as a dump stat. A fiendish battle axe that grants +2 to Strength – but also disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws when fiends are nearby – is a different matter. 

Should the PC use it all the time, or only selectively? What can the PCs learn about possible threats before raiding the dungeon -- how likely is it that demons dwell there? The PC has a risk/reward calculation to make, and an incentive to be careful and thoughtful about the in-game environment. 

I have also used items with cumulative risk built in. For example, in my Gravestone Deep adventure, I included a magic item with the following clause: “Using [the item] more than once per day will result in a cumulative X-in-6 chance that [the devil] escapes, where X is equal to the number of attempts beyond the first.”

I don’t love this design, as it requires tracking the number of uses; but it definitely provides the push-your-luck aspect of play that I love.

Magic Itemization: Streamlining 5E’s Designs

If your game uses inventory slots, like Knave, you’re good, because everything is a choice. Even a magic item that is stronger than anything you already have compels a decision: what to drop to make room?

If your game is level-less, like Electric Bastionland, you’re good, because the game’s “oddities” are one of the only forms of diegetic advancement in a game where characters don’t have an intrinsic class advancement track. The guidelines for oddities are helpful for thinking about magic items generally:

1. One use only, disposable.
2. Limited number of charges. 
3. Random chance of depletion on each use. 
4. Large and clunky, or even immobile. 
5. A creature instead of an object. 
6. Requiring a very specific uncommon input, such as a fresh corpse.
7. Occupying a specific part of the body that can’t hold multiple things, like goggles, or gloves.

The first two and the last two will be familiar to D&D players. The middle three are probably underutilized in most D&D games. We’ll come back to those.

Speaking of D&D, if your game is 5E, it’s… complicated. There is little or no encumbrance tracking at most tables, and the game orients character advancement through class abilities. Whereas 3.5E and 4E treated magic items as part of a leveling system, 5E is agnostic about what role magic items should play, and their widely varying mechanical implementation reflects that ambiguity.

For example, the Fochlucan Bandore, an uncommon magic item in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, allows the attuned user to cast eight (!!) spells once per day each, most of which are quite powerful and routinely useful. A bard in 5E gets something like 1.5 spell slots per level, so finding this item is the equivalent of a handful of levels in spellcasting advancement.

When a discussion of instances like this appears on Reddit or Twitter, people are mostly focused on “balance” and “power level.” My issue is different, as I don’t care (much) about balance. I dislike 5E magic items because of the added layer of complexity, the implicit tracking, the subsystems and non-universal rules, and the distraction from the game’s emphasis on class advancement. Not that class advancement needs to be central to gameplay, but once 5E has decided to center it in that way, it makes the business of complex magic items a problem.

Consequently, I’ve streamlined how 5E magic items work, and plan to streamline further. Here’s a review of the principles of magic items in 5E, and consideration for how we can make them leaner and meaner.

Attunement

The game’s central mechanic for limiting the use of magic items. It usually appears on items that grant passive, always-on buffs or advantages, although certain items that grant a broad swath of abilities (like the aforementioned Fochlucan Bandore) also require it. Note that magic weapons typically don’t require attunement, because their use is already implicitly bounded by the action economy of combat.

Attunement is… OK. Like a lot of 5E’s mechanics, it’s a non-diegetic compromise between different styles of play over the previous editions. But three is an easy number to remember, and it compels PCs to make choices, so it’s OK. We can keep attunement.

Slots

Slots were king in 3.5E, following something like the classic ‘90s CRPG model of a body diagram with spots for boots, cloaks, helms, and so forth. This form still works well in video games – Disco Elysium, for all of its strange qualities, has a pretty familiar slot system for equipment. Slots have an appealing toyetic quality, as they make characters feel like customizable dolls or action figures.

5E nominally retains slots, but is less concerned with balancing around them (from the DMG: “a character might be able to wear a circlet under a helmet, for example, or be able to layer two cloaks”).

We will mostly ignore slots, except as a common sense judgment call on the part of the DM; i.e., we’re not tracking slots specifically, but don’t try to wear two magic hats at once (unless of course you have two heads, a non-zero possibility for a veteran adventurer).

Expendable

This category includes potions, ammunition, scrolls, and similar items. Some games do struggle with “rainy day” syndrome, where characters hoard items they will never use, but my players have been good about avoiding this. 

My only issue with expendable items is that a player in a tight spot will sometimes browse through everything in the inventory, as if they were in a point-and-click adventure game, hoping to find a solution to their current problem. “The answer is not on your character sheet” applies here. But the eureka moments, when an expendable item is used in an unusual or unexpected way, are worth it.

Expendable items also are much less likely to break games. If an unrestricted magic item trivializes combat or exploration, it’s a problem the DM needs to deal with. If a magic item that can be used only once trivializes a challenge, the choice of one and how to use it becomes the challenge.

We will keep expendable items; if anything, we should probably use them more often. They’re diegetic, they’re easy to understand, and of course, they compel players to make choices.

Charges and Once-Per-Day Usage

This is where things get tricky. If a magic item isn’t naturally bounded by action economy in combat; or expendable; or limited by attunement/slots, then it usually works on charges. Some items in the 5E DMG can only be used once per day, which essentially means they have a single charge. In many previous editions, charges were non-renewable, so charged items were just a form of expendable item. But most 5E items with charges recharge each day.

Charges are bad because they require two tracking actions; subtracting the charges on use, and then adding them back the next day (usually after completing a rest). Each item rechanges at its own rate, which means the PC will have to check the item description every time they rest to remind themselves of if it recharges at a fixed rate or on a die roll. The variability of the recharge in theory creates a resource management game. In practice, at least in my experience, it rarely factors into the PC’s decision to expend the last few charges. 

For example, the 5E DMG’s Mace of Terror has three charges, and regains 1d3 charges at dawn. Is any player going to conserve a third and final charge on Tuesday, on the off chance they roll low, and then have a particularly acute need to frighten people on Wednesday? No. The spread between empty and full is just too small to worry about, for an effect they probably don’t use every session.

I prefer magic items that – however strange they may be – have a sort of “common sense” reasoning behind them, or are just intuitive, or folklorically logical in a way that the player’s essentially memorize how they work and internalize them into their character. Charges work against that.

We’ll start by ruling that tracking any kind of variable numbers is ruled out. We keep once-per-day, because a binary, used-or-unused state is easy to remember, particularly if each gaming session covers a different day (an advantage of tying in-game passage of time to out-of-game time). Players can almost always remember if a particular item was used that same session. 

Next: Attuning to the Results