SnailSong OSR Blog

Maintaining engagement at low levels with a seemingly weak character class

The Optics Problem

The Magic-User of B/X flavoured role-playing can feel like a tough sell upon reading to many players, particularly players coming in with pre-conceived notions of ‘class balance’ as a mechanical construct. Their low spell count, immense squishiness and lack of weapon access are a mental block for many players I’ve run into. Now, if you’re reading this, I know you know that it isn’t really that big a deal. You’re likely preparing the same spiel I’ve given over and over about how the real secret to old school play is avoiding conflict and how every character can come up with creative solutions to problems in the dungeon. That is true, however, it still rings hollow when they compare the kinds of things that other characters can do at low levels. Even the relatively unreliable thief has a long list of things they could do, granting them great optics of utility even when they can’t always deliver on it.

Picking a Magic-User as a player new to OSR role-playing can feel at baseline a bit like an empty promise. You might be really cool at an indeterminate point in the future, a point which your character (or gaming group) may very likely not survive to see.

At its core I think this is purely an optics problem. The Magic-User is actually plenty powerful and one of the coolest members of the party at level 1 if framed in the right way to centre class fantasy.

Slight Solutions

There are two common methods I think I see a lot for either recontextualizing or addressing this problem.

The first is to increase the general utility of the low level Magic-User through mechanical changes. This is stuff like increasing known spells based on INT modifiers or allowing the use of basic ranged weapons such as slings. I think these changes do have their place (I even play with the latter one in my game because I find it more fun), but I don’t think they do much to address the class’s optics problem. As far as a player sees, the reason you’ve made this change is that the Magic-User is an ‘underpowered’ class and needs GM intervention to be rendered ‘viable.’

The second method is to really hammer home the power level of old school spells compared to modern counterparts. Sleep instantly neutralizing most low level encounters, Charm Person potentially granting you a loyal follower for months, pointing out this kind of stuff does help a little in addressing the optics problem of the class. By pointing out how cool you can be it at least feels a bit less bad that the rest of the time you’re just cowering and spending all your money on magic ink. However, it still frames the class fantasy at level 1 as a singular moment of arcane ejaculation followed by becoming useless for the remaining hours of play.

The Magic-User is a Nerd

On top of the prior solutions, the main way I’ve sought to remedy the Magic-User’s optics problem is by paying extra attention to the class fantasy of someone who has chosen to play one. Magic-Users are supposed to have spent their entire lives up to this point in deep study, so as a GM treat them like that! When your party stumbles across some alchemical equipment, single out a Magic-User and say explicitly to them something like ‘The arrangement of vials reminds you of instructions you’ve seen for creating Potions of Invisibility’. This could give the whole party knowledge they can use deeper in the dungeon, or it could just be world info that makes the player feel like they’ve learned something they wouldn’t have been told otherwise. ‘You remember from your studies that the soldiers of the ancient empire of Arronath wore lizard skin greaves, these statues seem to match that description.’

Critically there’s no ‘Arcane Skill’ at play here, no rolling to learn this stuff. You give the Magic-User this bonus info because they are a Magic-User and the Magic-User is a nerd. When they know that the Magic-User can provide key context on a potential encounters, players may be more likely to put in that time investment to get them through the early levels, and actually have fun doing it. It also adds a whole new layer of confusion when something truly ancient pops up that even they have never heard of.

I don’t think this approach should just apply to the Magic-User of course, I think there’s a generally underemphasized role of class fantasy in old school play that deserves more discussion. But I think by paying particular attention to the lifetime of learning your Magic-User has performed you can really reduce the early level frustration of someone who has chosen to play one at your table.