[PK]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Somehow I feel sad for the original Thaumatology book now that RPM came out and was so cheered by the crowds.

I'm feeling sad that the original Thaumatology didn't seem to have as much anticipation and cheering as RPM, even though it seemed to be a 'heavier' book.

Really? I recall a lot of cheers and love for Thaumatology when it came out. People were excited to see Path/Book and Threshold magic updated to Fourth Edition, the rules for improvised spells were hailed as a godsend, and so on. Perhaps it didn't get quite as much attention as RPM is getting right now, but I think that's more because of the following factors than anything inherent to the book:

1. Thaumatology was released amid a horde of other GURPS books; Ritual Path Magic is the second non-Pyramid book released after a long drought.

2. Thaumatology was mainly seen as a Fourth Edition update to many older, Third Edition systems, while Ritual Path Magic is an expansion and update to a much more recent, popular system. What I mean is that the latter is still a "hot property," which means that people had more emotional investment in seeing it come out.

Anybody else bothered that we now have Path Ritual Magic and Ritual Path Magic; Magery, Ritual Magery, and Magery (Path) and Magery (Ritual Path); Path Adepts and Ritual Adepts?

I hear you. I chose the name "Ritual Path magic" because, to me, it best summed the system up; hopefully it's obvious why. And -- in a vacuum -- I don't think there's any argument that it would have been the best name. But in the context of all these other systems with similar names . . . yeeeah, I admit it can be a tad confusing.

Anyway, if it were a serious issue -- that is, if it were consistently causing problems due to similar names -- we might've considered renaming it for the new book. But it really hasn't been a big deal. And if there's one thing that's been clearly demonstrated over time, it's that renaming thing between versions/editions does cause a lot of confusion. So I feel confident saying that renaming Ritual Path magic, Ritual Adept, etc., would have likely caused more overall confusion at this point, not less.