Mystery

Can anyone in the campaign be a wizard or priest, or do these characters have to belong to a select set in order to even begin their studies? Do the common people know enough about magic to distinguish between priest and wizard spells? Is the study of magic a study of easily-defined natural laws, or are the forms of magic deliberately obscured by generations of needless rite and ceremony? Most importantly, do the PCs know the limits of a spellcaster’s powers?

In most AD&D games, characters “in the know” have an excellent grasp of exactly what each spell available can do. After all, most players are quite familiar with the Player’s Handbook and know the spells they can make use of inside and out. But most common NPCs aren’t as knowledgeable; the typical innkeeper doesn’t know that a low-level wizard can use invisibility to walk out without paying his tab, or fool’s gold to cheat him. He just knows that wizards can do things that ordinary people can’t, and if he’s a bright innkeeper, he never falls for the same trick twice.

In a less mysterious world, the same innkeeper knows to look out for invisibility, charm person, fool’s gold, and half-a-dozen other dirty tricks. He may even know enough to request a wizard to relinquish certain spell components to make sure a particularly obnoxious spell (fireball, for instance) won’t be available to that wizard while he’s in the innkeeper s place of business. In this kind of setting, everyone would know that priests can heal injuries, blindness, or disease, or possibly bring back a loved one from the dead, and priest characters will be constantly asked to use their powers on someone’s behalf.

In a world where the nature of magic is cloaked in superstition and ignorance—an 8 or 9 on the scale—spellcasters will generally inspire fear in anyone who learns of their powers. Note that even the wizard character himself may not really know why his spells work—imagine a character who begins a magic missile spell with a thunderous declaration of the names of forbidden powers, just because he was taught to do it that way. Of course, one of the ‘names’ is actually the spell’s verbal component, and the rest of the nonsense has no effect on the casting of the spell. It’s a good idea for a DM with this kind of world to forbid players from looking up spells and effects in the PHB, since their characters only have access to a portion of this knowledge. The DM should also feel free to alter standard spell effects and create new spells just to instill a sense of dread and wonder in experienced, jaded players.

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