Magical Realism

[Turbojugend]

I'm reading Gabriel García Márquez' brilliant novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and finding the style of magical realism to be quite cool. Now, the question i have is how to create a dnd setting which is magical realistic? And yes, I understand that this would demand tweaking of the rules etc, but I'm speaking of how to get the "feel", what would make a dnd world magical realistic?

For those of you who is unfamiliar with the term I quote from encyclopedia.com: "Works of magic realism mingle realistic portrayals of ordinary events and characters with elements of fantasy and myth, creating a rich, frequently disquieting world that is at once familiar and dreamlike."

Have a nice day.

 

[Ferret]

So like I'm walking down the street 'la dee da dee la' Robber on his flying disk phasewall's the bank vault and teleports out with the money?

Cool

 

[Zappo]

I think he refers to novels and works where there are supernatural elements, but the stories are about normal events, and the characters are more like common people than adventurers or heroes. Some of Bradley's Darkover books are like that. I find them rather interesting, but I don't think D&D would suit itself well to this style (now, a d20 variant maybe...).

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

D&D could do that, but you'd need to change the paradigm. Instead of playing fighters and wizards, priests, and rogues who save the world, bring bandits to justice and slay monsters, you'd need to play commoners who marry women they don't love in order to meet the expectations of their family, commit adultery with their neighbors, die of heart failure during coition on a bed surrounded by candles and then come back and haunt their family for it. Skill ranks include bluff, diplomacy, profession, craft, "moping about the sucky life you/your colonial oppressors have created," "making yourself miserable because you don't want to let anyone know you don't want to live up to their expectations instead of letting them make you miserable because you don't live up to their expectations," Whine, and Sollilloquey. Classes are Commoner (slut), commoner (cad), commoner (decent guy), commoner (dutiful but fat and ugly and betrayed wife), commoner (good guy who can't get a break), commoner (violent drunk), and ordinary commoner. Experience is gained for standing in picturesque poses and creating scenes that win awards at film festivals.

And you can call it: "Commoner: A d20 system for role-playing pseudo-medieval soap operas."

I think he refers to novels and works where there are supernatural elements, but the stories are about normal events, and the characters are more like common people than adventurers or heroes. Some of Bradley's Darkover books are like that. I find them rather interesting, but I don't think D&D would suit itself well to this style (now, a d20 variant maybe...).

 

[Stormborn]

I am unfamiliar with that particular work, but am a fan of the genre. I have a couple of suggestions:

If you would be willing to consider non-d20 material then I recommend Unknown Armies from Atlas Games. Much of it was inspired by the works of Tim Powers and similar writers and is a good example of roleplaying in the genre. It does require heavy role-playing, BTW, since much of magic is free form and all combat is dangerous, players interested in a hack-n-slash dungeon crawl or are not very good ad libing are not going to like the game.

If you want d20 rules, there are a few options. I would recommend a skill based magic system, there are several floating around. OldDrewId's from his Medallions Story Hour is a good homebrew example, and the file is available in the story hour thread.

With magical realism storytelling becomes a key component. Beyond that, it all depends on how "real" you want your magic, how prevelant, and how powerful. If you cut down on access to spell components, make your players describe the casting, and make sure they have to role-play eating a spider to cast "Spider Climb", even traditional high fantasy DnD type magic can have a more realistic feel, a la d20 Modern's Urban Arcana.

 

[tarchon]

So like I'm walking down the street 'la dee da dee la' Robber on his flying disk phasewall's the bank vault and teleports out with the money?

In magical realism, the robber sends in a troop of trained army ants that open the vault and carry the money out. I guess the main difference (in as much as there's any difference) is that MR (mostly) treats the fantastic elements as being exceptions to reality whereas fantasy treats the fantastic elements as being a regular part of the internal reality of the story. Basically, fantasy (and sci-fi) tends to create rule-based fantastic settings whereas MR tends to use real world rules and then break them in singular exceptional instances, particularly with a strong air of absurdity. MR often uses these like exclamation points or boldface so it uses them sparingly, and unlike fantasy it doesn't aim to create an extended suspension of disbelief, but rather to offend belief in a most egregious way.