Is it really that hard to find a straight Faerun, lower-magic campaign?

My God, I've spent hours combing this website looking for a low-magic campaign set in Faerun for 3.5 edition D&D, and it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. My time slots are 10am to 3pm any day of the week. Not looking for a monty haul campaign, or a campaign where every other person you meet is a magicked up, warforged fighter/thief with a death mark from the Lady of Pain and married to a half-dragon with an adopted tiefling for a kid. What happened to playing something ordinary and making the ordinary extraordinary through roleplaying rather than how much magical crap you can accumulate? In LOTR, even the elves were something special because they were so rarely seen; orcs and goblins were fairy tales...until they came knocking at night. Not all of us can be Drizzt Do'Urden or Elminster. I'm happy playing a kobold who plays outside of his alignment. Woo. Earth shattering. Not very powerful, and not very popular, but just different enough to be a little out of the ordinary. I don't need to min-max to make a character playable--that's why it's called ROLEPLAYING!! The reason I don't play WoW is because when the extraordinary becomes so common as to be ordinary, it becomes BORING. Honestly, if there's a mage shop on every other street corner, magic loses it's wow factor. Becoming very disillusioned with this site not because of the abundance of different play styles here (if you like high-magic, rock on--it's just not for me), but because there are no filters for things like low-magic to filter the results, and when I look for Faerun campaigns, I find nothing. I'll give it a week. If I find nothing by the end of this week, then I will search elsewhere and apologize for wasting your time.

Maybe, instead of ranting, you should start a low magic, Faerun campaign.

No, thanks. I've done my time in the trenches DM-ing, and I got out of it for a reason. I don't enjoy DM-ing anymore, and thanks to agoraphobia, I don't leave the house to find groups. Would have posted this in the General Off-topic forum, only that's been archived. I still recommend better filters such as campaign settings (Faerun, Dragon Lance, Greyhawk, etc) and low-magic/high-magic.

As far as I know Faerun is high magic world per definition. If you want low magic one - try Greyhawk perhaps?

^This. Forgotten Realms is a high fantasy campaign setting. Magic is incredibly important, and plays a major part in its history. Magical artifacts of great power, entire regions influenced by magic spells or catastrophes, and famously powerful wizards are all the norm. The gods regularly interfere with mortal affairs in Forgotten Realms, and the entire world has been torn asunder by a global magical event in recent times. If you're looking for a low magic setting, Faerun is the opposite of that. Try looking for Dragonlance or Greyhawk games. You may have some trouble finding them, but they're probably more up your alley. In the 80's and 90's, they were very commonly played, but lack of recent published materials has caused interest to wane. There are still some people playing classic settings, though.

I actualy agree with the OP, Any campaign can be low magic, its up to the DM to make it so.

I've looked for Greyhawk games (the only thing that comes up, strangely is Electrum City...) in the 3.5 edition venue, and no dice. I've played Faerun campaigns where magic hasn't been so emphasized, but yes, I should have said Greyhawk. As for Dragon Lance...one word. Kender. And the way the Towers like interfering, they might as well be gods. If I could find something in the venue of LOTR or Wheel of Time where magic is mistrusted by commoners, orcs and goblins and the like were myths, and there's lost cities to find hidden deep in the wilds, then I would be as pleased as punch. The only problem I find is that, while I don't mind playing alongside an elf or a dwarf (have a good reason for coming into the lands of men! Not just, got bored, wanted to see the world), there's always one or two players that want to min-max and play some off the wall creature like a dracotaur or a yuan-ti. If you're playing that, and you walk into a normal town or village, the villagers are going to run screaming. A kobold? Meh. If I wear a cloak and keep covered, most people will look the other way, though I would certainly expect to be questioned before too long. This is why I prefer lower-magic settings. I miss the wow factor--hey, we just found a +1 short sword of sharpness named Henbane! It's been lost for a thousand years! Magical items should be special--even the simple ones like a Ring of Protection +1. When it becomes where characters say, "oh, man, it's just another Vorpal Sword! I wanted a Mace of Smiting!" there's a problem. I am extremely detail oriented when it comes to character development and item history (one of the reasons DM-ing is such a pain to me). I like to leave a lot of hooks for DMs to pick up, or not, in my backstory so as to make their job easier and not be a PITA to play with (another of the reasons I gave up on DM-ing). A group of adventurers walking into a village should attract attention, especially by kids ("Did you come from the east? Did you see any dragons? How many orcs have you killed?"), almost like bards were the lifeline of news and gossip to the remote hamlets. If nothing else, this will teach me patience, so it's not such a bad thing after all.

+1 to Kirby's comments. You pretty much have to be the DM if you want it bad enough. Then, with a group of dedicated players, chances are one of them will decide to take the wheel and DM in due course. Some groups take turns.

You might need to expand beyond 3.5 also. There are Greyhawk games in 1st, 2nd and 5th edition. I've run or played in them, not being a fan of Forgotten Realms.

Limiting yourself to a specific setting, style, and older system might be the reason you're having trouble looking for what you want. If you want more luck at catching fish, try using a wider net.

Would've told you to check my campaign, even though it's 5e, but on second thought, definitely not. You sound to be a good example of that guy .

Is there a site for converting 3.5 to 5th? Otherwise, I'm going to have to use a website like hypertextd20 (not linking because of possible copyright issues). What's the biggest difference between 3.5 and 5th? Is it still the d20 system? I didn't care for how WoTC starting dumbing-down the skills and over-simplifying stuff (a fan of detail, which is why I liked the Cyberpunk d6 concept of making everything a skill), but the feats kinda made up for it. Loved the Damage Threshhold and Condition Track of the Saga Edition Star Wars concepts.

Emanuel D. said: Would've told you to check my campaign, even though it's 5e, but on second thought, definitely not. You sound to be a good example of that guy . Flaming? Really? You sound to be a good example of that DM that allows players to play dracotaurs at 1st level. No, thanks.

Everyone enough. No more criticizing the OP. He did not ask to criticized, He was asking for a game. If you do not have a game or know of a game that comes close to what he wanted then don't reply. Most of this thread is walking on CoC violations (Common Courtesy section) and you will not like the results of that, so enough. Twowolves80, while there are not any filters in the forums there are filters you can use in the LFG search engine . Try your luck there. If you have been here long enough to get votes for the suggestion forum, make a post about the filters. If you have not there is a suggestion thread down there about the roll20 site overhaul and you can post to it about your filter idea. New members can post in an established thread in the suggestion forum but it takes a vote to create one. If you were looking for low magic games, you might have better luck with the older D&D systems like 1e or 2e AD&D or some of the retroclones that are around. Good luck with finding a game but it take patience and persistence also to find one.

Thank you. Like I said, I wouldn't mind checking out the 5th edition stuff, but I have to do so online as I currently do not have the $100+ to drop on new books. If there is some kind of online resource for 5th edition--a quick and dirty guide of sorts--then send me a link and I can expand my net. The filters I mentioned is what I'd like to see in the LFG search engine, but point taken. I have been looking using the LFG link at the top of the page, and drawing snake eyes. I will post in the suggestion thread--thanks. Maybe it will help...who knows? GURPS has way more detail, but again, I would have to find online resources. One of these days I may GM a Star Wars campaign, but I've got a crapton of stuff going on right now, which is yet another reason I'm reluctant to pick up that mantle, though I do have my own hand-drawn maps and use Campaign Cartographer by ProFantasy. That's why I said, Pat S., back aways that if nothing else, this will teach me some patience.

helpful c. ^This person knows what's up. You're stuck in a mindset, and you're blaming others. There are lots of different systems out there beyond D&D 3.5e or Dungeons and Dragons in general. You just have to go out there and find it. Or create one? I always hated the magic button where it solves everything, so there's little thought process into figuring out a problem. That's one of the reasons, beyond not finding a game, I became a DM. I created my own worlds, my own lore, and created challenging but fun scenarios. I followed my gaming muse that created my first game and then finally to my favorite system, Fate. I've never regretted a thing.

Ok Twowolves, I missunderstood your post. I thought it was about the forum. Roll20 is system agnotisic so the game search engine tends to be that way also. I think there is a suggestion thread about the game search engine also, you might have to dig around for it (there is about 6 pages of suggestions). To find 5e stuff you would just need to go to the Wotc site and search for 5e. They are still giving some of the pdfs, such as the beginners 5e PHB and I think the DMG also, away for free. Gurps lite is free and located on Steve Jackson's site. I understand the picking up the mantle part. I'm just now slowly picking it up myself (personal reasons). If you are into text chat games, I know of a group that might have what you are looking for.

For a D20 system that you don't need to sink money into, check out Pathfinder: <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/</a> Many people refer to it as D&D 3.75, so it will be closer to what you're looking for, it is still fairly popular (YMMV), and the SRD has everything Paizo has released for the game (and a lot of third party material, clearly marked and set off to the side). Sometimes they change the names of feats/abilities, but the material is there and the site has a built-in search engine, and it is all free to the public. Hope this helps.

Ok. I think this has gone on far enough. I'm closing this thread. Twowolves please fill free to post a new thread but just put in what you are looking for. If anyone posts criticizing the OP thread, I will take that as willful voilations of the CoC.