[hal]

GURPS FANTASY first edition had far less in the way of spells than GURPS MAGIC for 4e. To the best of my knowledge, the the system was designed largely by pulling numbers out of thin air, playtesting it, and revising it until it worked reasonably well. More spells were playtested and printed in ROLEcPLAYER (what PYRAMID is to GURPS 4th edition today). Then came GURPS MAGIC 1st edition. Next came GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition. Then came GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition, second printing. I was writing the Alaconius lectures on GURPSNET and even put forth the Alaconius method for using divination and enchantments to create quirkless power stones. The powers that be made the second printing outlaw using magic to influence enchantments. Then came GURPS GRIMOIRE. I stopped the Alaconius lectures about that time due to issues with the direction GURPS was being taken where MAGIC was concerned. I consider GURPS GRIMOIRE to be over the top and largely incompatible regarding the original structure as given in GURPS MAGIC - so much so that I refused requests to include the in the lectures. Then my wife got bitten by the "mage bug". The ONLY book she's ever read from SJGames is GURPS MAGIC. She asked me to continue the lectures and I believe I did one more before before GURPS 4e came out. By then, I was pretty disgusted by what came out in GURPS MAGIC for 4e that I never wrote another lecture again. I've seen the evolution of GURPS MAGIC from start to finish and consider the current edition an attempt to cater to the "over the top" or DnD style magic. That is why I tell people to buy GURP CLASSIC MAGIC in preference to GURPS MAGIC for 4e. In my opinion, it is more balanced than GURPS GRIMOIRE, and gives a less intrusive (world building wise) metaphysical magic system than GURPS GRIMOIRE. Because GURPS MAGIC for 4e includes all the spells from GURPS GRIMOIRE, it too suffers in my eyes as being heavily flawed.

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