Magic in Your Dark Fantasy D&D Campaign | DM Advice | TTRPG | DnD 5e | Ben Byrne

Want monsters that set the mood and terrify your players? Here are some DM tips for running monsters in a dark fantasy D&D campaign.
Topics:
00:00 - A spellcasting horror story
00:57 - 4 tips for making magic feel dangerous
02:15 - Magic is difficult to wield
07:13 - Magic is dangerous
10:17 - Magic is mistrusted
13:14 - Magic is rare
____________________________________________
Edited by ‪@ZsDante‬
Follow Ben: @Melb_DM
Keep up with Ghostfire Gaming: @GhostfireG
Join our Discord community: / discord
Discover a world of dark fantasy in the Grim Hollow supplements for 5e! ghostfiregaming.com/GGYT_ALL1...

[@matthewstefancik634]

I'll admit I don't run dark fantasy as much but I do like a more mixed view on magic. More of the consumables and less consistent magic items is a really good one to make them feel more unique

[@BeastmasterRanger]

Our friend runs a low magic setting game. He warned us all in the beginning that it was low magic. We all picked casters. It has caused lots of issues. Commonfolk see us as terrifying. Martials think poorly of us since mages are normally cowards (which are party is 75% of the time). It makes for great RP and I would have it no other way.

[@lucynythelucy9915]

In my campaign, in lore, magic is practically energy being used by spellcasters to cast spells. Wizards use the weave to reshape reality, which often has long term effects on the caster, tumors, cancer, and other abnormalities(An inexperienced mage might melt their brains when casting a spell). Druids use sacred, great trees that have 'blessed' the druids with their abilites. Warlocks and sorcerers are self explanatory.

[@dreadmorg]

This video deserves a million more likes. Well done! Also Ghostfire, give me more Grimhollow please.

[@GhostfireGaming]

Thanks, Keith! Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@Lcirex]

In a dark fantasy game I am more prone to creating magic items that have cost activations. For example when drawn your sword will give you a +4 to hit and an extra D6 damage die on hit for 2 attacks made but it will be made at the cost of a hit die.

[@GhostfireGaming]

That's awesome, coal soak. Paying a physical (or even moral) cost for the benefits of a magic item isn't just great for dark fantasy, but it's also awesome game design as well!

[@sterlinggecko3269]

I have a mechanic with Grit and Spark Pools, and some items grant Grit of Spark, some cost it for an ability, and Grit can be spent to add damage before the attack roll is made, and Spark is used to recharge Spell-type weapons and shield generators and other magic items and such. (I'm using mostly Starfinder rules in a Pathfinder setting, but also with Burn mechanics for casting spells.).

[@soulcrow7651]

I am coming up on the last games of a three year campaign in Toril with Avenger-style heros. The next game will be in Etharis and I cannot wait for the more serious and nuisanced encounters. Magic having reprocussions and pacts carrying transformative effects is something I am absolutely craving. These are great videos and I am sending to my players to get them ready for our session zero! Thank you!

[@mjnior]

I love your campaign book. Your transformations have made it into my own gothic style campaign. Keep up the content :)

[@GhostfireGaming]

That's great, mjnior! We're thrilled you're enjoying Grim Hollow content in your gothic campaign. 😀

[@jasoncustomizer56]

I made a campaign based on the city of Mordhiem and I setup that magical weapons are not a real thing until they collect enough wyrdstone and gold to create a magical weapon.

[@LasseROM]

I ran a game for a group of plane hopping PCs where we took turn GMing our own worlds. My world had a mechanic where magic actively attacked casters. Cantrips and level 0 spells just had the PC feel slight pain and discomfort. Casting levelled spells would deal 1 unavoidable damage pr spell level each time. This wouldn't trigger concentration checks but just tick down the casters HP. This made the spell spamming PCs look for none magical solutions to problems, and people with massive burns or other unusual scaring were visually identified as casters. They even found a circle of scared corpses before fighting a fiend.

[@darkness6921]

I like the idea that most magic items have a draw back to using them but they are powerfull. Keeps them from being spammed

[@cavalcojj]

So here is a hot take. Magic Items shouldn't be able to be sold or bought in shops. They should always be priceless items. Even a "basic" +1 sword.

[@GhostfireGaming]

Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave? 😑

[@Taven03]

I love your guys work. Gimm hollow is so much fun. Something I add in is alchemy/chemistry and non magical ways of gaining bonuses which adds to the amazing ability of magic. I also add in materials that are resistant or immune to magic. The inquisition isn't scared of magic because their armor makes them resist to magic

[@nathanielwilder5990]

I really am enjoying your videos and take on Dark Fantasy RPGs. Thanks for a great vlog.

[@GhostfireGaming]

Thanks so much! Really glad you like them.

[@timblighton6216]

“And there’s no one there to counterspell them.” Yes, which is why inventions, in both a physical sense and martial tactics would evolve to combat magic wielders. IF the populace knows the spellcaster or type (i.e. necromancy, etc), then they can adapt to that magic. Society changes in high fantasy, directly because of the magic used and indirectly because of that magic. There’s a mending guild that competes with other guilds like cobblers. Perhaps, the cobblers only allow the menders to mend. Maybe only to a certain degree of repair. Or the cobblers own/are the menders allowing the cobblers to create fancier shoes with wild filigree, etc. The converse can also be true. The cobblers chase a mender out of town, burning their shop in the process and publicly shaming whoever used the menders service. Because a necromancer oppressed the countryside years ago, local lords train villagers in village how to use long spears or pikes, how to build pit traps for the shambling dead, and those capable with a hatchet or sickle or whatever get thick leather coats and gloves for close quarter combat. Magic can be rare, making the pc spellcaster feel special, offering the gaming power trip, AND society can adapt to their existence and powers to some degree of success. The possibilities are endless and fun, even in dark grim-dark fantasy.

[@BodyByBenSLC]

I totally agree with you on magic items, should be rare and special. I treat them like lucky charms or bobbles. Potions should be Hella expensive because if someone has a open wound or broken bone and alchemist has leverage and will charge top dollar. Also rare items put a target on players back, if someone has 1 of only 3 flaming swords in the world criminal gangs will try to steal it, states will treat player as if they have weapon of mass destruction, people will follow the weilder of the flaming blade, that player might become a celebrity or factions will try to bring that player on their side of a political debate to get clout.

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

My favorite "dark" fantasy setting has always been Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the best ways I've found to run games in that setting is to take 5e characters, limit their access to magic items or even magic classes, and run them through Call of Cthulhu modules. Swap out ghouls for vampires, eldritch horrors for demonic horrors, and be very clear about the fact that most npcs will die shortly after they discover magic is a real thing. Oh you want to cast your spells in a crowd of humans and you didn't take the sorcerer levels needed for subtle spell metamagic? Okay. Hopefully, you can pass a DC 35 Slight of Hand check, or else the Big Bad is going to use the chaos from the panic/stampede to strike. On a related note, the last ten years of hate crimes, civil rights violations, and murders perpetrated by the police on camera in broad daylight have helped to cut down how often someone asks, "Why don't we just call the police?" in any "modern" setting campaign.

[@kelpiekit4002]

The magic classes can shape dangers too. Sorcerers are trying to control magic bigger than them so they should be like x-men mutants. They have a 20th level characters magic happening around them, but they can only control up to their current level. Clerics and paladins will get targeted by enemy religions and beings looking to corrupt them as their magic becomes known. Wizards come to the attention of similar beings as well as fallibility of their learning. Druids and rangers transgress against the nature they care about by tearing forth its power inciting corruption or devastation. And warlocks are too easy. Everyone knows the costs of warlocking.

[@ontheedgeofshadow2790]

My home group has not touched "Dungeons and Dragons" proper in about 7yrs, as I only run "Pulp" style "Sword and Sorcery" Dark Fantasy.. and my group has discovered DnD largely didn't have much to offer for those with our playstyle. We're certainly not going to come back to DnD because we've acclimated to other rulesets, BUT I makes me very happy that dark fantasy and grittier storytelling is coming back to the mainstream view of gaming.. I really love this channel, and now Byrne goes through various monsters and different ways of making DnD "feel" (in my opinion) "better" in an almost classical literature sense. we've all heard Grimm's faerie tales stories (and most of those are horrific) i believe tabletop gaming needs more of that subtle nightmarish narrative to it to spice up a story's conflict. Everything about these kinds of videos is fantastic to me, please continue.. I'm a new subscriber, and its actually really nice to hear things that I've largely been doing in my other games for several years now, can be done and are being shown today.. very inspiring for new GMs and players, I love this so much.

[@GhostfireGaming]

Thanks so much, we really appreciate the positive feedback! 😄

[@Bl1tzkn1ght]

In my homebrew setting I've dabbled in a low magic campaign. I think I can use the system you guys made to make magic actually as dangerous as I made it in the lore. The only mage themed city is a Sultanate empire that uses what few mages they know of as walking nukes. One way I made magic dangerous in my homebrew I borrowed from Warhammer in that magic is attached to hellish dimension that will tear a mage apart in a fiery explosion that taints the surrounding area in magical radiation that mutates all living things within the area.

[@williamgoley]

I’ve found a lot of success making magic items that require a specific number rolled on a d4, d6 or d8 on a long rest to recharge. Makes it so they use them more cautiously but also don’t lose it forever

[@dezopenguin9649]

One thing about the rarity of magical items is that for most players, the value of magic items _as_ magic items is in the statistical effects it has on their characters. So one way to deal with magic being rare and special narratively, especially at low level, is to replace magical items with mundane items that have similar statistical effects. Instead of a +1 sword, now you have a masterwork sword that gives the same +1 bonus and is, say, inlaid with silver or blessed by a certain temple so that it can harm creatures the Monster Manual says can only be hit by +1 weapons. This allows the narrative flavor of the campaign to be preserved without excessive rebalancing of the underlying game system, while preserving actual magic items for those things which have greater effects. Or impose other, minor burdens that can be addressed in the campaign. (The magic sword was crafted by alchemy, and needs to be re-treated by an alchemist after every X combats or the metal loses its magical infusion. This also works well if the DM wants to run a "strip characters of their items" story without permanently taking things from the characters--the alchemist is unavailable for some reason (possibly for a reason directly connected to the adventure plot) and the weapon is therefore mundane until the adventure can be resolved--but then is restored, so the character isn't reduced long-term and the potential for this happening is foreshadowed by the item's nature right from the beginning.) The one thing about dark fantasy magic which is touched on in this video is that the point should be to uphold the flavor of dark fantasy in the campaign, not to hose one of the character classes at the expense of others. Too often, limited magic systems act by taking the magic-using classes and slapping a bunch of penalties on them (something I always hated about the 2E Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death setting, where wizards fought in melee like wizards, but used magic in combat like fighters; the intent was to make 2E more of a horror game but really just illustrated the weaknesses of shoehorning the system to do something that CoC and GURPS were right there for). All that does is put a burden on the players playing caster classes that's specifically out of balance with how the players playing martial classes are treated. On the flip side, though, is the role of anti-magical forces in the campaign such as witch hunters, and Grim Hollow's Arcanist Inquisition. Narratively, these things are formed out of the social hatred/distrust of magic (and also to uphold certain Gothic imagery). But as Ben touched on, a peasant mob with pitchforks and torches isn't going to be effective against a wizard who can start tossing out fireballs. Genuine magic cannot be stopped with superstition and fear. That means witch-hunters have to actually understand how magic functions in order to be effective against it. But if mage-finders do understand magic, then either magic has to have some genuine mechanical risk in the campaign narrative that makes fighting it reasonable and valuable, or else the witch-hunters have the same moral grounds as Matthew Hopkins or the Salem courts (i.e. "they're just howling bigots" -- and worse, they're howling bigots who have a practical understanding of what they're bigoted against, meaning that they hate something while having full knowledge that there's no reason to hate it). That in turn makes your witch hunters nothing but unadulterated bad guys,, and stripping out the moral complexity of those witch-hunters works against the tone of dark fantasy and pushes the campaign towards straight grimdark (everything sucks, people are awful, morality is pointless, we're all probably doomed anyway).

[@mattalford3862]

Really great advice! I hope to try this in my next campaign.🤞

[@RMSBones]

The editor had fun with this video

[@zacharychampoux1130]

Personnaly, to make the magic more dangerous, chaotic and unpredictable, I made my players roll a spellcasting ability check to see if they succesfully cast the spell or not and I add critical success and critical failure.

[@dominicleclerc1343]

With the alternate rest rules, warlocks regain spell slots 3 times faster than other casters, instead of 8 times faster. They would have to get increased spell slots to balance things out.

[@TheMichaellathrop]

So with this modified rest mechanic do you allow the benefits of a short rest that are only supposed to be once per long rest once per day or once per actual long rest? Also a really cool mechanic I first saw in the Midnight campaign for 3.5 was growth magic items, something that the players could get early and might start out as a +1 sword or spell focus, but as you level and grow they become +2 and +3 items with additional effects.

[@GhostfireGaming]

Great question! This came up in my home game itself recently, as we now have a party wizard. Using Arcane Recovery as the example here, it only works once between long rests. If a feature or rule is intended to only work on one short rest per day, take that to mean one short rest between long rests. We revisit these rules again in our Grievous Wounds and Recovery video. We also did a video on “evolving magic item” artefacts I’ll link here. It thematically tied with this video and how dangerous magic and magic items can be: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYbWfq2GlKuooJI

[@akrdragon1240]

I would like the maps of the city of ethress that my players and myself would know

[@sarcthesheep8348]

How would you go about creating a dark fantasy theme in a more high magic setting? For instance, I have a city that houses various colleges of wizards, druids, sorcerers, ... But I still want to get the darker tones going. I was thinking along the lines of - the colleges are secretive in nature & there is some pretty frowned upon activities going on behind the screens - and similar minds tend to group up, causing a magic brain drain in the rest of the continent. In a sense, magic is prevalent but still unknown to the majority of people.

[@amehayami934]

Or can just make it high magic but just make it "iffy" kinda like dragon age. Sure make magic user's very uncommon to see but if found out and caught they are taken to a Mage school and they take some of your blood "a Fillactory" where Templar/the Inquisition can track you down if you escape or do any Ilegel magic. I think if you make magic easy to cast for the magic user and make it very flashy and pretty and powerful. They will be more tempted to use it. And yes I do use that. Player's can go beyond spell slots but they have a choice. They cast with the force of their own will. So tapping their constitution which means they can cast themselves unconscious. Or Sanguinemancy Where they use vitality. Yes I use wounds and vitality. How ever if they use Sanguinemancy they open themselves up to a lit of thing's. Not to mention I created my own Sanguinemancy spells and it is quite powerful. And worst yet they'll find out they don't even need to use their blood. How's that Vampiric, assassin, Blood Mage running around murdering people to do their blood magic. One of their spell is to just rip the blood right out from them. Another one is to boil someone's blood that's in them.

[@mke3053]

Magic items alter it all. I mkstly deny magic AC boosting items for my players. At high lv they may get a +1 to AC. This way i dont need monsters to have magic attack items. Also they can actually represent a menace for any level party.

[@kameqblindweaver8296]

Nah. Make EVERYONE a novice spellcaster, then worldbuild around how horrible that can be. For every person who uses it to grow extra crops to feed their neighbor, theres someone using it to obsessively chase being able to speak to their dead spouse one last time, or for destructive spells of war And since everyone knows something or other about magic, NPCs can have opinions deeper than "magic is bad" Magic isnt made dark by being rare, its made by people doing dark things with it

[@SquirrelGamez]

The problem with this whole thing is that D&D is designed as a high magic, high fantasy game. What you're describing works in a low magic, dark fantasy game. In short, this for Witcher, not D&D. Stop trying to change D&D and just play one of the many many many other great ttrpgs (that also happen to not be made by awful companies) on the market.