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#1 another_poet Aug 10, 2007 13:04:00

I often see the assumption on the forums that people living in a D&D world would all believe in magic. In a very high-magic setting like Eberron, where magic is woven into day-to-day technology, I’m sure that would be true. And any given DM can rule that in their particular world most or all citizens are believers. But I want to point out how tremendously easy it is to live in a Greyhawk-like world and never believe in magic. Toward the end of the article I’ll also give some examples of how much a strong faction of skeptics can benefit your campaign. To demonstrate this I want to use a couple of real-life examples. I’m not going to talk about real-world scientific testing of magic, since real-world magic is integral to a number of religions and I don’t want to start an ideological debate. Rather, let’s take a step back to the 19th century when a couple of pseudoscientific trends were sweeping through Europe—phrenology and hypnotism. Phrenology is the use of skull measurements and facial features to forecast personality traits up to and including IQ and moral conscience. Basically, it’s the idea that stupid or evil people look different than smart or virtuous people. Hypnotism is something that most readers are probably familiar with. It’s the act of putting someone into a light trance and making suggestions which they are inclined to later follow. What do these two “arts” have in common? Well, both are pseudo-scientific and both, in their heyday, were the subject of much controversy. There were large camps of supporters and doubters for each system, and both sides felt they had strong scientific reasons backing up their opinions. That’s where the similarity ends, however. Although the two systems appealed to similar crowds, rose to similar levels of infamy, and reigned supreme during the same time frame—one of them turned out to be complete rubbish (phrenology), while the other turned out to be a valid and reproducible phenomenon (hypnotism). Hypnotism was eventually refined into an effective psychological tool, while phrenology fell by the wayside. But it’s important to note that for generations phrenology was out-and-out accepted as valid (even though it wasn’t) by a large number of people, including many leading scientists of the day. Even now, people perpetuate some of the stereotypes set forth by phrenology almost two hundred years ago. That’s the problem with things that can be observed but not explained: people make up their own explanations and stick by them dogmatically. And that is exactly what I think would happen in the D&D world, where a decent subset of people can use powerful magic but almost no one has the education to explain accurately how that magic works (if it can be explained at all). Bear in mind that the people living in the game world don’t know what we do. We can look at a rule book and see that magic does work, certain types of casters have so many spells per day, the gods are real and grant certain powers to their clergy, and magic can fail only under certain predictable circumstances (target makes a save, anti-magic field, etc.). But that’s a birds-eye view that people in the game world don’t get. Instead, their experience might be more like this: A self-proclaimed “wizard” who dresses funny, is weak, scrawny and rather stuffy, and carries all sorts of weird and disgusting ingredients on his person sets up shop in town. Most people don’t have the money to afford his services, but a few people (usually a friend of a friend of a friend…) claim to have seen firsthand how amazing his power is. Curious and a little suspicious of this newcomer, the captain of the guard visits his shop and demands to see some demonstration of his abilities. “I heard you can levitate. Is that true?” “Oh, yes. It’s quite useful sometimes.” “Okay old man, let’s see it.” “I’m sorry, I can’t right now.” “Why not?” “Well, I didn’t prepare that spell today.” “Okay, well I heard you were conjuring up food and drink this morning. Can you do that?” “Yes sir, but not today. I’ve used up that magic and would have to prepare it again a different day.” “Well, isn’t that convenient.” Of course, a wizard is unlikely to waste his spells just to impress skeptics even if he does have some good ones prepared. Assuming that he is willing and able to show off spells, they can easily be dismissed as hoaxes using real-world skeptic arguments: Any spell that is flashy (has light, sound, etc.) can be dismissed as an illusion: use of mirrors, hidden accomplices, ventriloquism, etc. Any spell that has fire, cold, or changes one thing into another can be attributed to science. Wizards often have alchemical knowledge, and all of the scientific equipment sitting in the wizard’s study would tip off any learned observer. “Sure, he really did make a fiery explosion, but that was chemicals, not magic…” Any spell that makes something appear or disappear, (including summoning spells) can be easily replicated in the real world with stage magic tricks. Trap doors and mirrors are most common ways of setting these up for large objects, or sleight-of-hand for smaller ones. Any spell that causes an effect on a subject, such as blindness, Bear’s Strength, etc. is easily dismissed as psychosomatic suggestion. “Well yeah, he thought you were cursing him, so suddenly he felt cursed and couldn’t see. There’s no magic in that, just placebo effect.” Face it, most D&D magical effects are easily mimicked by carefully set up tricks. Compounding this is the fact that most people who get to see magic at all will only get to see low-level spells. After all, high-level characters are rare and the only casters likely to be performing publicly are bards (who will probably combine their limited magic with singing, acrobatics, humour, and staged special effects to thrill the audience—hardly a credible display!). Of course, there are other ways to see magic. Orcs and ettins might only be biological races (no sign of magic there!) but dragons, mind flayers and pixies are all brimming with the supernatural. Still, not many people ever see those creatures (and fewer live to tell the possibly-exaggerated tale). Clerics offer a whole other type of magic, if you understand them in terms of D&D rules. But living in the D&D world it's just one more guy in robes making extravagant claims. Here in the real world there are traveling evangelicals who routinely “cure” people of cancer, AIDS, blindness, and all other sorts of problems. The formerly ill believer will even testify that they feel 100% better, or can see better, or what have you. Of course, many of these people relapse within days or hours, but that never makes its way into the next sermon. Such displays attract droves of followers but, even though they are every bit as impressive as the spells of a mid-level D&D cleric, they also attract droves of atheists and debunkers. Why would the atheists of the D&D world be any less vexed by the miracle-workers of their own towns? Of course, there are some things that are undoubtedly amazing to watch in the D&D world. If a high-level cleric raises a corpse, or a paladin’s mount appears in the midst of battle with no possibility for mirrors and tricks around, that might make a believer out of almost anyone. But when the new believer tells his story to others it can promptly be dismissed as an unsupported anecdote, a trick of the mind, a mental illness, or simply a lie. All this is to say that even though the rules make clear that magic, deities, and miracles are 100% real and reproducible in the game world, that in no way precludes NPCs—even lots of NPCs, even educated NPCs—from denying it. Some of these doubters would be mild agnostics while others would be foaming-at-the-mouth dogmatic nihilists. Most would be in between. Many will come up with elaborate rational or empirical arguments proving that they are right. Others may rely on bluster and charisma to sway the masses away from magic. Often there would be a moral component to their anti-magic sentiment. “We’re sick of seeing poor people spend 50 gold pieces—money they saved up for years—to get a sham ‘healing potion’. These wizards are preying on people’s fears and hopes!” So you might ask yourself, alright, some atheists live in Greyhawk. What’s the big deal? The big deal is that this is one of the largest untapped plot devices in the fantasy world. DMs and players alike assume that because magic is real in fantasy games, that the characters in those games will believe it is real. But adding some skeptics to your campaign world—whether just one high-ranking official, or a whole movement against huckster wizards—can really spice things up. It affords plenty of new role-playing scenarios, new types of factions to use in politics-heavy games, and a very fun tool with which NPC’s can frustrate or dismiss PC’s. There are few things that are going to make a mid-level wizard hate the BBEG more than being repeatedly told he is a sham illusionist with no real power. This will also make the BBEG’s death all the more satisfying if it is brought about via magic. Other possibilities include evil guys who head an anti-magic movement but are secretly mages themselves. They use their “truth movement” to discourage or eliminate the competition. If such a movement is sponsored by the state, it could lead to oppressive anti-magician laws and even arresting and trying PC casters without doing another knockoff of the Salem Witch Trials (*yawn*). Remember, many players are so conditioned to think of the religion-vs-occultism divide that they will find the science-vs-occultism divide to be new and interesting. Perhaps most important, remember that dogmatic movements cause tension and contention wherever they spring up. That goes for dogmatic doubters just as much as dogmatic believers. Religion and mystical practices were actually outlawed in some real-world countries (most notably China, where this dramatically changed the role and practice of martial arts and ended some longstanding cultural traditions). As a DM I’m always looking for a new idea to grab from real history and put into a game. By calling into question your PCs’ most basic powers you can really surprise and challenge your players (and irritate them, if that’s your cup of tea). So give it a try sometime—and enjoy playing that deadpan NPC who always has a "rational explanation" for the flashy spell being cast!