Forgotten Realms
This is a high fantasy setting where you’re going to see all the content (almost) from Wizards of the Coast coming out in. It’s your typical fantasy setting where Dwarves act like Dwarves and Elves act like Elves. This setting can be seen as a little bit vanilla in how standard it is, but it also makes it an amazing jumping off point for new players because it has a level of familiarity to it. The main cities in the Forgotten Realms are going to be Waterdeep and Baldur’s Gate.

Eberron
Eberron is a very different setting than your typical fantasy setting. Magic is basically used as technology in this world. And it isn’t just a world where you have your standard races that you can play, there are shifters, changlings, and monstrous races that you can play as well. What also makes this setting unique is that the setting and call the adventures are set after this great war has ended when a country wiped off the map do to some cataclysm, but it’s never stated what it is, so it leaves it open for players and DM’s to decide for their campaign. The setting is very pulp and noir in it’s feel.

Ravenloft
Another different sort of setting where it’s less your standard fantasy setting and more focused on a Victorian Gothic setting. It is also going to be focused on a lower level of magic. The land is ruled by a vampire, Strahd, that is basically locked into the cursed land and most adventures set in Ravenloft are going to be about finding out Strahd’s history and then dealing with him. In 5th Edition the Curse of Strahd adventure pulls players from the Forgotten Realms and sticks them into this setting that is different than the world that they know and they are stuck there until they can defeat Strahd, if they ever leave.

Dragonlance
One of the first, if not the first D&D setting, Dragonlance is going to be another epic fantasy setting. The world is greatly influenced by the deities and a lot of the stories revolve around the good deities fighting the evil deities or the return of dragons after centuries of absence. It’s going to be much more in the standard version of fantasy and another good jumping off world that you could use to introduce Dungeons and Dragons.

Grey Hawk
As compared to the epic fantasy settings, Grey Hawk is more of a sword and sorcery setting. It is going to be darker and more dangerous for your characters. Magic is going to be less common than some settings. Grey Hawk is more of a world that is on it’s way out and the adventures that you might be more about keeping the world going versus bringing the world into a new great place which some Epic Fantasy stories can focus on more so.

Spelljammer
Now, if you want something completely different. Spelljammer is kind of a setting, but it can hit up most settings as you have magically powered space ships. This is going to be a game where you want to hop between a lot of worlds, have grand space exploration sort of adventures, versus a more traditional traveling adventure like Lord of the Rings. It really isn’t something that they’d call it’s own setting anymore, but it’s something that you could easily focus on to move between the worlds in your own campaign.

Dark Sun
This used to be a great world, but now, magic has defiled and the land and use of magic can make it even worse. And there is a god-like Sorcerer King who is ruling and can you stay out of their wrath or will they crush you and your party as you try to survive the harsh lands. Dark Sun is going to be a lower magic game that is much more focused on the survival throughout the lands and avoiding the halflings who are jungle cannibals. There are some new races that you can play in this setting as well and one of the biggest types of magic is psionics.

Birthright
If you want to play that extremely epic nation level game, Birthright is going to be the setting of you. In Birthright every player is going to be connected to a nation and have some sort of royal blood. These campaigns are going to be more about that nation ruling, epic wars, versus that smaller adventuring party. Birthright is a setting you’re going to have to come up with or tweak combat for to make it done at a bigger scale.

Planescape
This setting wraps several planes of existence into a single setting. It also takes it out of the normal medieval fantasy setting and puts it into a more Victorian and pseudo-steam punk world. There is a city of Sigil which is the home base for the players and is generally where you are going to be sending them out to the other planes to have their adventures and then returning back to Sigil to resupply, recover, and get new adventures.

Now, that’s just the start of Dungeons and Dragons settings. There are new ones being created as well as old ones that might come back. Most of these settings don’t have official books for fifth edition, but if you find older world setting books, you’d be able to turn them into something that you can use in 5e.

Do you have a favorite setting or is there a setting that you’ve really wanted to play in?

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Quick refresher, high magic means that magic is common and is used for common tasks or that towns will often have a healer or someone who can cast some spells. When people see you cast a spell they won’t want to either worship you or burn you as a witch. Low magic means that magic is rare. If you can do magic, you might be revered or you might be seen as an abomination that should be killed.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about how it can affect how you role play in a game.

I think if you’re a magic user in a high magic world, you aren’t going to be set apart at a lower level. A spell like mend or cure wounds, your small towns are probably going to have someone who can do those things. People are just going to see that as normal and it won’t be until you start casting higher level spells that you’ll be considered special. In game, I would use that a motivation for a character, you want to be the best smartest wizard, most powerful sorcerer, or devout cleric. It gives a reason for a character to go off adventuring from their small town where they might be able to live a good life, but they want more because they’ve heard of that powerful and revered wizard who now consults for nations and can travel to other planes of existence, you want to be like that. Or maybe you have a rival who is just slightly better than you.

You can also, since magic is common, take some role playing queues from maybe you are just common and not needed in your town. You can almost be kicked out to go find a small town where your skills are needed or maybe you’re just not as good yet, as the person in town, so they want you to take over as being the towns healer, but they send you away to get more experience first. So instead of leaving to make a name, you might be leaving to adventure so that you can come back home. I like this one because it can give you a nice hook for adventuring and gives the DM something to play with.

Let’s look at the flip side of this, what if there is very little magic in the world, how do you role play that?

Firstly, there’s always getting kicked out of your town because you’re a witch or needing to flee, especially if it isn’t a holy magic. So any class that isn’t Cleric or Paladin could be seen as being some sort of abomination. And if you’re a Warlock, maybe your pact actually is with a demon. But, how can you use that to role play. You might be out to prove that you are in fact great. Or prove that your town should have kept you around because some day they might need you. This is a very chaotic and potentially neutral or even possible for an evil character. And, again I like it for a hook as a DM, at some point in time, when you have the power to stop something to happening, I’d force you to make a decision, do you go back to your home town to save them or do you let them burn because they kicked you out? If you still have family there, did they kick you out or was it the town, do you need to still save them?

Or, on the other hand, you might be almost revered. Does that make your character pompous because they can do something else that others can’t and everyone loves them for it? Will they hold that over everyone? I can see a couple of backstory hooks, one where the town sends out the person to save them from some impending doom because you are the best person for it in the town and you must be able to save them because you have magic. But what happens if you can’t? The other would be if you’re playing more a pompous character, are you going to go out and make a name for yourself because the town you’re from is too small? If someone did that, I would then definitely have something happen to the town that you could have stopped, and how does that affect the character? Is it an acceptable loss for their fame or do they feel guilt over something having happened?

There are a ton of hooks you can choose to play around with for both low and high magic worlds and playing a spell caster in them. I didn’t even get into how it might affect party dynamics, but that’s something you’d probably need to role play out with your own adventuring group. Do any of the hooks I’ve presented interest you? Have you played a character like any of those before?

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Let’s jump into the top right away because there’s not much need to explain what magic is, but in fantasy, there is generally magic. It isn’t in every case, but in a lot of cases there is some level of magic. That’s where the difference between high and low magic fantasy settings come in. High magic settings, magic is common place. In your most common examples with D&D, there is generally a fair amount of magic, probably more medium magic, but magic isn’t something that’s going to be shocking to most people. Low magic is on the opposite end of the spectrum, magic and magical items – in an RPG – are rare. People covet magic, fight over magic, and things like magical healing are not to be found.

And the article is done. Or I’ll talk about why you might want to pick one setting over another.

First off, consider the story you are trying to tell. How important is magic to it? If magic is important to the plot, and gaining a specific type of magic or a specific magical item, ask yourself then, is that because magic is rare or not. Is the item important because it’s a forgotten relic from long ago with a magic that was long lost, and now a group of wizards are going to be fighting over it? Or was it thought long lost, and now that it’s been found regular people are fighting for it because magic is so scarce. But then again, it’s possible that magic doesn’t matter in your story, is that because magic is common place so it doesn’t stand out as special or because it’s so rare that the two people off to the side of the story who can use it aren’t going to drive the story?

From there you can start fleshing out your world and determining how magic is used, is it swish and flick magic or dancing in a circle under the full moon magic? If you haven’t decided this can also help make your decision. Even if you have a lot of magic users, it can be a world that is harder to influence by magic if the magic only works during a full moon and requires extensive rituals. It could even be that everyone has some form of magic but if the ability to cast magic is too complicated most people won’t do that, creating a low magic world. Or for example, in Harry Potter, magic is simple, but the world as a whole is low magic, we’re just in the high magic part of it for the series, so even with swish and flick magic, it’s been hidden away. Hiding magic is always interesting and can make your world feel more low magic though it could eventually end up being higher magic magic as time goes on, such as if in the world of Harry Potter magic was to be revealed, it would make the whole world feel lower magic in some ways, but higher magic because it isn’t as isolated.

Finally, consider what level of magic you want s you consider where you want the focus of your story to lie. If you’re doing a story about a normal person who makes it big in a world where magic is common and overcomes that perceived deficit, than you’d want to go high magic. But if you don’t want your story to focus on magic, going with a lower magic setting would make sense. It’s possible in that last example that you could have a higher magic world, but magic is just common place, but you have to worry about the restrictions of magic.

In fact, that’s another reason why you want to consider your magic level of your world. In a world with a lot of magic, a lot of problems are going to be solved by magic. Especially in stories about the hero overcoming lack of magic or just overcoming without using magic, you have to set-up a world where magic wouldn’t make that much sense to be used. That means the Harry Potter swish and flick magic might be too simple for your world because it doesn’t expend energy or resources. But if you can only cast a spell from a faerie circle, during a full moon, while dancing around in a circle and doing a chant in the fresh dew, you could have a lot of magic, because that magic is just hard to do. At the same time, if you are using magic, you don’t want to fall the other direction of making it too weak that there would be no reason to do any sort of magic, because the technology of your story works more effectively.

Finally ask yourself where your magic comes from, that is going to make a huge difference. Is it that it’s divine magic and anyone can get access to it if they believe in the right deity whether that deity is good or evil? Or does the magic come from within and some people just inherently have it like in The Magicians or Harry Potter? If you just have to truly believe in a deity, people are going to have magic, and there’s going to be a lot of it because people will believe since they can see very tangible proof. But if it’s an inherent ability, than you can decide how few or many people get to have it based off of how much magic your story needs.

These are just a few things to consider. It is interesting to look at it for books, but as well for RPG’s where you can take something like Dungeons and Dragons and turn it into a low magic setting. What do you do when a player wants to play a Wizard? It can create interesting stories as your players might have a rare character or you might not let them start out as a magical character at all.

What are some examples you like of high or low magic worlds? Have you played in a game where it was very high magic or very low magic?

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