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Can Microlite games be effective without magic?

Description: Looking to create a medieval RPG setting

Discussion and Reviews of rules-lite tabeletop RPGs (games like Microlite20, The Black Hack, etc.)


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gjbkk
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Can Microlite games be effective without magic?

Post by gjbkk »

Firstly, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thanks for this fantastic forum and set of goodies.

My son wants to try a TTRPG with a medieval setting, possibly without magic. I know there are lots of games out there that serve this purpose but if it can be done, I'd like the challenge of adapting/cropping one of the ML games. So: can it be done? Which version would be most suitable or would it be a case of taking any of them and simply not including magic?

Sorry if these are daft questions. My knowledge and experience are probably lower than other forum users here.

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quaffeine
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Re: Can Microlite games be effective without magic?

Post by quaffeine »

Hi!

No daft questions here! Or maybe they're just all daft questions, how would we know the difference? :lol:

I think it would be arguably easier to adapt Microlite to remove magic, at least compared to a number of other d20-based games (including the Usual Suspects). The basic magic system in m20 (powered by HP) means that magic-users already start with a similar level of endurance as other classes.

The only thing you might want to keep an eye on is damage output of non-magic wielders versus the HP of enemies, especially at higher levels. I recently ran an m20-based campaign where there was no "magic" as such, although the party did have a chemist that could do some magic-esque things. There were also options for the "fighter" do up damage using something like martial feats, and as a result I found I had to toughen the enemies up quite a bit to challenge them. But if you're planning on sticking close to Purest Essence I could see it going the other way as well. If you have nothing but "vanilla" fighters doing 1d6-1d10 tops each round, make sure your enemies don't have hundreds of HP they'll need to hack through.

Otherwise m20 should give you a great chassis for a magic-free game, IMO.

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gjbkk
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Re: Can Microlite games be effective without magic?

Post by gjbkk »

Thank you quaffeine, I think I am going to give it a try. I did find some non-magical medieval RPGs online but they are about 30 dollars, which is more than I want to pay for something I will have to print and study, then possibly play for ten minutes and then decide it's not working out.

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squirewaldo
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Re: Can Microlite games be effective without magic?

Post by squirewaldo »

I think Microlite20 and Microlite2020 are ideal to develop without magic. I have created a number of different games that do just that. In fact I had to add magic to provide more flexibility. I think the Microlite system is ideal for just such efforts.

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quaffeine
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Re: Can Microlite games be effective without magic?

Post by quaffeine »

I can attest that the game @squirewaldo mentions worked well both with and without the magical elements.

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Re: Can Microlite games be effective without magic?

Post by squirewaldo »

Here is a game I made about a month ago that does not use any magic (link to free download):

https://squirewaldo.itch.io/small-survi ... coYgPmo0Vw

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