Anyone can play a magic user, though not everyone will, magic items are fairly common, and spells while commonplace are not omnipresent.īreaking the Paradigm - The end of the Low Paradigm comes with social innovation, as the previous paradigm shift came with the advent of iron and organized agriculture. Finding a middle ground is a difficult proposition, though I would consider the average fantasy RPG to exist between this range.

One writer's medium fantasy is another reader's high magic, or vice versa. It might be noticed that there is no Medium Paradigm, this is not an oversight. There is little to no concerted magic development and with rare exception magic is practiced by mentor-apprentice relationships. Magic exists but it is wrapped in a massive amount of occluding mysticism, written in secret languages, and bound in insular traditions and steeped in it's own strange lore. The Low Paradigm is the general area of most fantasy fiction, spells and magi are present but are by far a minority among the populace. Freed in extent from the dogmatic demands of the tribal faith, magical researchers will begin to expand their understandings of the tenets of magic. As per Evolutionary Theology, the tribal system moves if faith from a wide pantheon of little gods and elementals to a fixed set, moving the shaman into the role of early clerics that will eventually organize into a coherent faith. There would be a certain level of refinement of the magics available, but this would be limited by the dogmatic elements of spiritualism and the practitioners of said magic.īreaking the Paradigm - Breaking out of the tribal system of magic is a function primarily of technology and the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural civilization. This primitive sort of magic would have many limitations and be bound tightly in bonds of superstition and chimiage to patron spirits and gods. This would later branch into the dichotomy of the arcane and clerical branches of magic while one followed the spiritual aspect of performing magic, while the other moved into the technical aspect. Like technology, magic would have primitive beginnings with the witch doctors and tribal shaman of nomadic peoples and tribes. There is little room for growth or experimentation as with such a setting, most such magics would have already been extrapolated, compiled, archived and lost during the subsequent end of the previous culture. This makes me think of a cold and dead system, moribund in it's own veneration.

In the given structures of game writing, there is never change in a system of magic, and most have schools of magical thought that trace back thousands or even tens of thousands of years into the past. The terms high magic and low magic are paradigms, perceived modes of magic that are set not by the environment but by humans/humanoids who exploit magic. Instead, like technology and other human endeavors, that magic is a product of intelligent (human or otherwise) experimentation, exploitation of a natural resource (ambient or internal magic essence) and a continual process of change. I propose that magic is not a function solely of the enviroment and is not determined by arbitrary levels of ambient magic. While commonplace, I feel that this shows a strong bias towards nature over nurture. Despite it's many obvious magical elements, Lord of the Rings remains a low to moderate magic setting since spells are slung few and far between, while Piers Anthony's Xanthe novels magic is so common place that not having it is seen as a social stigma. Normally I have no problem with this, it has been an accepted part of fantasy writing for many years. This is also applied to technology as if the two function on the same level of existence. In fantasy, there is a general consensus to the amount of magic present in a setting, demonstrated as no magic, low, moderate, or high.

Paradigm shift mtg