Magic. It's a staple of fantasy worlds, to the point where a medieval campaign without magic is, well, just people hitting each other with sticks (not that there's anything wrong with that; I ran an awesome Rome During The Bubonic Plague game where there was no magic). But without magic, you lose magical items (toss Excaliber back into the lake), magical creatures (take old Smaug to the back of the shed), and all the things that makes old men viable as heroes. It's more than that, though. Without magic, you lose the tropes of the genre. What would Frodo be without Gandalf?

But, magic is magical because it is rare. How do you force this rarity? Here's my top ten list.

1. Physical Limitations. Some people are born with the talent, the aura, the mana. Some aren't. The PCs can choose if their characters have the magic ability. It limits multiclassing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. GURPS builds this in to some extent, depending on the exact campaign, with Magery being an advantage necessary for magic users. Eberron's Dragonmarks perform a similar function, as well as Amber's houses. A game with this mechanic might have magic scouts, hunting through high schools like sport scouts in the real workd. "But mom, I don't want to be a sorcerer, able to tear the fabric of the universe and twist reality to my own design. I want to be a lumberjack." A futuristic game may have genetic testing, or even a twisted eugenics program mass-producing magicians. Whole campaigns can revolve around magic superstars.

2. Social Limitations. The magicians form guilds, and magicians with their primary attribute being Intelligence, voluntarily limit their numbers and form a monopoly on the magic business. Magicians could do this effectively, especially with enough charm persons, geases, and intelligence gathering spells at their disposal. Except, most games don't build this in the setting, probably because it restricts what spells a character can learn, and ties a player's hands to said organization. But, it's an option, and it opens a lot of doors. Power corrupts, and a group with the power has the potential for a lot of corruption.

3. Economic limitations. Someone has to grow the food and make the shoes. Except, a few druids can feed a family, and a conjurer can make a hundred shoes. Unless some factor intervenes (e.g., the material components make the cost of magic prohibitive), it will be cheaper to use magic than manual labor. If the material components are expensive, then magic turns into a rich-man's hobby, like collecting antique automobiles. If magic is unreliable or can turn catastrophic, that might be the factor to make magic not usable for everyday tasks. But, it's a fine line between "magic is unreliable" and "magic is useful enough to be used by the adventurers."

4. Magic is mysterious. Magic is in the shadows, not part of the day-to-day life. People don't learn magic because everyone knows magic doesn't exist. But, it cuts whole swatches of magic out of the campaign. So, this works, but it might not have the desired effect. Except, it might. I'm thinking of the Hellboy movies, where you have two different worlds: the world that 99.99% of the people live in, and the other .01%. The thing is, .01% of the population as of 2008 is still 600 thousand people. That number of people means you can create subcultures, markets, and real interaction. The trick is to get all those people in one area, with shadow worlds that they can walk to, cyberspace, or old-fashioned jets. Never underestimate the long tail effect.

5. No reason. Eberron and Shadowrun do this. Magic is ubiquitous and magic dealers are on every street corner, hawking their flight spells next to the guy selling genuine Rolox watches. On the macro scale, magic-powered trains rumble throughout the world. It's an option, but it's something that needs to be thought out (or just purchase the Eberron or Shadowrun source books, whichever option floats your particular boat). It changes the world drastically.

6. Plot limitations. Magicians aren't common, because it would add complications to the game, and goshdarnit we're here to roll dice, smash skulls, and find treasure. Not to spurn other gaming styles, but ignoring this factor makes the game less realistic, and in my opinion, less fun. I think a lot of this comes from Tolkien and Rowlings. They don't explain why there's only a handful of magicians, so why should we? A skilled writer can get away with that, directing the reader's eyesight and knowledge like a shell game. RPGs cannot, and should not.

"The intense occult training through D&D prepared Debbie to accept the invitation to enter a witches' coven.... 'Last night I cast my first spell. I used the mind bondage spell on my father. He was trying to stop me from playing D&D." Dark Dungeons, Jack Chick.

7. Magicians must sell their soul to the devil. If anyone wants to set up this Faust-meets-Jack Chick game, let me know.

8. Magic is on its rise. In most D&D games, it's assumed that magic has always been there, and the spells are commonplace. But what if magic is just starting to come into being? The spells aren't written and the magic items aren't enchanted. Yet. The rise of magic could create chaos on a national level as the first countries with magic users start to wield their economic or military might.

9. Magic shifts. I like this idea. Every X number of years, spells need to be rotated, kind of like tires. Like the previous column, magic crashes, and then comes back, maybe with a different spell structure needed. Magical items need constant upgrades, and spellcasters need to go back to college every few years to relearn their spells. If the rotation is cyclic, then you may have "weekend mages," people that learn a specific spell and realize that it can only be cast on Sundays, or only in November. And if the adventurers happen to be in a place where they can't upgrade their weapons when the event happens, well, too bad for them. Lots of paperwork, maybe more than you're willing to deal with as a GM, but it has possibilities.

10. Magic is ending. The ultimate in rarity. Yes, magic was there, but its fading away. It might be because it's been overused; Castle Falkenstein has a mechanic where the magical energies in a certain area are finite. All magicians drink from the same source. What if that source was drying up? It's like the oil shortage in modern times; people need to either not use their cars or find another source of energy. Because it's magic, that new source can be anything, from undiscovered countries to the blood of virgins. The other side to that coin is magic can only be used in emergencies, where there is no other way to perform an action. The trick is, everyone has that limitation, and it's up to each person to define what an emergency is. It quickly turns into a game of chicken where if no one changes his or her behavior, magic runs out and everyone loses. This brings some interesting moral decisions to the players, but you can enforce that morality with social mores or police action.

Of course, you can move the campaign up fifty years, where magic is totally depleted (except for the few sources that still exist). You'll need to make sure your ex-magicusers still have something to do, and make sure the players still want to play that type of game, but it's an option. And the campaign may start up with a way to bring magic back, but at a reduced or different level.

Next column, well, it's a different type of ending. Until then.