Campaign Toybox
The Story: When the Church of England set about translating the Bible into English instead of Latin a lot of the ecclesiarchy feared they would be replaced – or even destroyed - when the common man had direct access to the word of God. It’s a common theme whenever anything becomes less centralized, that those who were powerful because of they controlled that centralization fear losing that power. Even if nobody loses power, such changes can change everything. So let’s apply it to magic.
The central conceit of magic is its rarity. If it wasn’t rare, it wouldn’t be special. Sometimes it comes from the blood, but mostly it comes from study, be it of books or the stars. Magicians must lock themselves away from regular society, dig out the lost and secret knowledge that others could never understand, let alone master. But what if all that changed?
Yes, you do have to read the books. But then somebody invented the printing press, and somebody translated them. And anyone who read them could cast spells. And they could teach others who can’t read. Very quickly, what was once arcane will become trivial. That’s going to change everything, maybe even destroy the world. Some mages may try to stop that and get the genie back in the bottle. But people will already be mad that the wizards lied to them in the first place. Now the cat’s out of the bag, the only way forward is likely to be bloodshed…
Style and Structure: A lot of fantasy settings have extremely common “house” magic, and a lot also play around with magic being more restricted than it needs to be. The trick here is to take an existing fantasy setting, one you and your players are familiar with, perhaps even have played in or are playing in right now, and smash it with a hammer. Of course, do not do this if you have a wizard in the party unless you have his approval. If he does approve, it could be an awesome dramatic arc for him, but even so, he’s going to lose a lot of his niche, if not all of it.
The nice thing is that in rules terms, this is pretty easy. Simply take all the powers a mage has at a starting level and just hand them out to everyone. PCs and NPCs alike. Obviously, you may want some backstory to explain this but you can develop that later. The idea is this sudden influx of power is emblematic of what’s happening or about to happen in society. Yes, it might mean that every fighter suddenly stops using his sword and throws fireballs instead. That will tell you what’s going to happen to warfare – and to the income of blacksmiths. If the mage feels cheated, likely all mages will. Even if your PCs are very exceptional people, you (and they) can use what they do to guide how the setting will change – and then they can decide what to do about that. And that’s your campaign.
PCs and NPCs: Your PCs may already be in place, but otherwise they’ll be fairly standard. You want them to react in-game, not before the game, so ix-nay on making anyone already cool with magic being everywhere. Unless it’s an awesome concept, of course. As for the rest of society, check politics and history, recent and not-so-recent for all the types that spring up when something once controlled becomes uncontrolled, whether that be civil rights or acquiring music. Black market dealers in scrolls, moralizing wowsers decrying the times, bleeding cool anarchists fighting the power, evil profiteers happy to make money wherever it comes from, puritanical control bodies trying to put the toothpaste back in as ham-fistedly as possible, and everyone else who doesn’t really understand it but sure would like to throw a fireball at that guy down the street…
Plots and Villains: New technology and ideas spreads in waves, like a disease or a meme. Those waves are the acts of your campaign. Start small: let your PCs be there when the discovery is first made or revealed. Heck, maybe even give them the moral choice to reveal what they know or not (and if they choose no, give it meaning, don’t just let it happen the next day anyway, use it to give them time to prepare). Villains will be ubiquitous but the real villain is social upheaval and what it does to even the best of people. That doesn’t mean that it can’t all be part of a plan to (or simply coincide with) the return of some dark sorcerer or evil god. Just remember to keep both in focus, so it doesn’t just turn into “that one fantasy game where everyone could cast fireball”.
Sources: In fantasy, this is fairly rare: few settings have the time to both establish their rules then break those rules (with some notable exceptions, like the Thomas Covenant books). Science fiction is much more about the shockwaves of new technology and freedom, particularly in the new transhuman genre where freedom comes from death or scarcity, the latter always annoying those who control supply. Cyberpunk of course is an entire genre about making information and power free to the streets, away from those who control it, but it’s a battle defined by strict controls – runners wouldn’t need to run if information was totally free and unguarded (and that might be a fun setting to explore too). Your best source though is history and real life. Replace magic with music, or the printed word, both of which have become uncontrollable lately. Then just up the stakes and add explosions and demon summoning.
RPGs: Eruptions are not uncommon in RPG settings, fantasy or otherwise, but they usually still keep the new powers among a chosen few. Progenitor is superheroes but its powers are infectiously spreading across the world so makes a good model for a spread of magic. The game Shock! is supposed to be about social shock from technological changes in the near future but it would work in any genre or time period. Likewise the post-death tech of Freemarket could model a fantasy world equally post-death thanks to ubiquitous necromancy. Generally, fantasy seems resistant to social change, or to ubiquitous magic, although almost everyone in Dark Sun was psychic. Also – if you dig for it – Warhammer is a fantasy world on the brink of a different social change, as the ruling nobles are slowly having to recognize the growing size and power of the middle class and financial power. Plus it has just witnessed the rise of the printing press and has often dealt with controlling information (such as about the skaven) or preventing social unrest (like peasant uprisings). Warhammer, then, may be your safest harbor for such experiments.
