Prolly been asked before but I'll ask it again. How do you

High action, gritty (for everyone that isn't the hero) fantasy with weird shit (chaos or Lovecraftian horrors or what have you). Avoid good versus evil narratives.

>>54913348
Don't allow wizards, clerics, or druids.

Elric is gay af

>>54913501
Beats being a plebian with shit taste.

>>54913501
elric is great and that doesn't answer my question.

File: Conan Illustration.jpg (153KB, 669x960px) Image search: [Google]

153KB, 669x960px

>>54913492
All of those can be included but they would all be known as 'sorcerers'.

How you treat magic is key: it needs to be very mysterious - very much an 'outside' force that barely anyone can touch and no-one truly understands.
One of the best ways is to not have any playable magic users at all. The instant magic gets game mechanics applied it, it loses its mystique. The character might not understand it, but the player certainly knows that X spell has Y effect. The vicarious experience is ruined. Try to avoid this at all costs.

That said playable magic is certainly possible, but don;t do it in any of the obvious gaming ways.

Also, see pic for suggested aesthetics. These are not strictly required though.

>>54913348
Barbarians of Lemuria

>>54913803
The problem with unplayable magic is that someone will want to play as an Elric, and I don't blame them.

>>54913826
BoL actually does it quite well, especially for sorcery, which is dangerous and comes at a cost just to know. Its mythic edition improves on the mechanics of legendary, but loses some of legendary's charm.

My only complaints are that it doesn't have much in the way of options for combative PCs to manage groups (something like cleave, or the ability of a fighter to attack multiple monks at once) IIRC and that the beasts are too tough (they have a lot of health, which makes fights with them somewhat tedious).

bump

would 2e D&D be good for this kind of campaign?

>>54914286
Sure, if you don't mind that magic isn't going to feel very weird or dangerous. But AD&D actually does sword swinging badasses well, if you don't mind that they're a little boring to play (they wreck shit, but they do it in a very repetitive manner).

>>54913348
>system
>1. Don't use d&d, especially not 3.5.
D&d is a high magic superhero system.
>2. Use a system that can handle lower power, pulpy action.
Unisystem, cinematic Unisystem, BRP, mythras, gurps, barbarians of lemuria, zefrs, or even savage worlds, the new narrativist conan rpg, or ffg star wars, will all do it better than d&d would.
If you want something more like the d20 games you've already played, mongoose' conan isn't too bad. Superficially it's like 3.5, but much like fantasycraft, it's thoroughly redesigned.

>themes.
1. Magic is almost always powered by atrocities, and corrupts the wielder.
2. Good, holy magic, is in short supply and hard to come by.
3. Even sorcerers fight well in martial combat.
4. Cities and governments are invariably corrupt, decadent places filled with injustice. "civilizity" is an immoral farce that only benefits the people in charge, at the expense of everyone else.

>>54913348
Savage Worlds Lankhmar campaign setting.

>>54914379
Elric's magic wasn't atrocity powered.

>>54913501
The new comic collection comes out next month. From the previews, not only is it not gay, it's damn well one of the best interpretations in a while

>>54914434
Depends on how you look at it. Almost all sorcery in the Young Kingdoms weakens the Barrier of Law and hastens the eventual ascendance of Chaos. That's an atrocity, not really gameable though.

Elric is a typical example of an atypical character in his world, which makes for a powerful literary hero, but again is not highly gameable. His heritage is directly tied to Chaos, the primary source of magic, and he is considered the greatest sorcerer of his era. Most of his magic relies on ancient pacts or the direct intervention of a literal god of chaos. Also, most of Elric's invocations of Arioch require a fairly significant slaughter, often of his companions.

Conversely Theleb K'aarna is probably a more typical, although extreme, example of a sorcerer in that world. Pacts with demons and lords of chaos are the quickest route to power. They no doubt blood sacrifice and perversions of all sorts to contact and mollify. Even though the magic is effective it cost pieces of the sorcerer's soul. Theleb K'aarna ends a withered, drooling husk. He has sold of his soul piece by piece for fleeting power and committed atrocities, alluded to but never described, and ends up insane and impotent.

Magic in Elric's world is fairly typical of sword and sorcery literature. Elric is an exceptional character so he has transcended most of the boundaries of sorcerers in the background of the books.

File: dcc_core_front.jpg (85KB, 600x600px) Image search: [Google]

85KB, 600x600px

Dungeon Crawl Classics is very....well, it's very much a specific vision of dnd-style action, which doesn't necessarily reach what we're talking about here.
It mixes in 70s sword-n-sorcery aesthetics with the idea of games being lethal as hell, plus a love of unnecessarily special dice.
But anyway, where I was mainly going with this is the nature of magic - its effects are always a little different, and failure can sometimes result in the caster getting mutated. PLUS, there are Patrons - higher powers that can be 'Invoked', which is similar to a lot of the magical feats pulled off by Elric and such.

>>54913348
>tales that speak of frost and fire

>how

https://youtu.be/SdaEYxivjM8?list=PL6559658E698E288D

pump up the volume

File: Dungeon_of_Caution.jpg (171KB, 600x765px) Image search: [Google]

171KB, 600x765px

>>54913348
>How do you do a sword and sorcery game/campaign/setting?
Depends.

High Fantasy = Noble heroes and cruel villains who are larger than life exist in a world where magic, usually a wondrous force, is something that brings great wonder and unfathomable horrors. By and large the world is good.

Low Fantasy = Everyone is a regular person interested first and foremost in just making it through another day. All characters will have a few specialized skills but are unlikely to be the best at them. Magic will be, at best, tolerated in s much as it is useful with many seeing it either as a malevolent force or mere superstitions believed by loonies.

You can play around with these two styles but this is my default. Hardest part of it is determining many details about magic like whether or not rituals are required for certain spells or if magic itself has any inherent morality.

>>54916514
Sword and sorcery is a variant on your "low fantasy" definition.

What's the recommended reading material?