Magic and Story Telling When it comes down to it, an AD&D adventure is nothing more than a story created by the DM and embellished upon by the players. Every campaign generates volumes of epic confrontations, cliffhangers, and sinister villains—it’s just the way the game is played. Magic is often the central feature of these campaign stories; most players couldn’t tell you a thing about Joe’s paladin, but everyone who was at the game remembers the time Joe’s paladin found the holy avenger! An enormous number of player characters are remembered fondly not for their personalities or the skill with which they were played, but instead the particular magical items they owned and the nifty tricks they had with their spell selections.

While this isn’t necessarily bad, it can detract from the role-playing elements of a game if the players and the DM allow it to. After all, when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail—and if you’ve got a flame tongue sword, it looks like the answer to any problem is going to involve slashing and burning something. Similarly, a wizard whose most memorable achievement is his invention of Alkair’s inescapable decapitation and subsequent use of the spell in every encounter for the rest of the campaign isn’t really a well-developed character at all. A hero with a magical sword is fine, but when the magical sword defines the hero, the hero is diminished.

Another difficulty that arises in many campaigns is the substitution of magic for technology. AD&D game players are (quite naturally) creatures of the modern world, and modern conveniences such as automobiles, tanks, telephones, televisions, computers, and any number of other devices seem so indispensable that there just have to be magical equivalents. While some of this is fine in any campaign, it desensitizes both players and DMs to the sheer wonder that magic should inspire in most characters. After all, magic should be magical, full of mystery and terror, but when a character routinely uses magic to brush his teeth and stir his stew, magic becomes nothing more than a tool. Blurring the distinction between magic and technology detracts from the strength of both philosophies.

Last, but not least, it’s important to remember that magic can do anything that a DM needs it to do for purposes of advancing the plot or elaborating on an adventure. If the story calls for a greater tanar’ri to be encased in a glass globe, it’s not necessary to worry about exactly how the tanar’ri was imprisoned there, or what spells the old archmage used to defeat the creature; it’s okay for a DM to simply tell the players that the archmage did it. However, PCs and NPCs who are interacting with the party should follow the rules—up to the point that the rules interfere with the story.

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