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Old 09-11-2017, 02:01 AM   #21
JaJacob
 
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

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Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
I would use Sense for Path of Magic as a general predictor or the appropriate Path for specific winds.
Yes, that makes sense. Was thinking the same.

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Originally Posted by Ghostdancer View Post

While I love RPM (and I'm using a highly modified version in my current campaign setting) it doesn't always lend while to the campaign's premises. My last campaign used Sorcery for example because it just didn't work with the game mechanics and premise of the setting.

If I were the OP I'd look at what I was trying to do in-game first and then find (or build) a magic system that matches it.
Well RPM is best starting point for what I'm picturing, both flavor and mechanic wise.

I will go with classic RPM threshold with energy accumulation if I won't figure out anything else. It's very solid and represents close enough what I want. Most likely I would introduce extra dice for accumulation, depending on wind of magic.

Effect shaping RPM is also strong candidate. It looks like it would be the simplest to manage in game. Very fluid to represent all the variables to casting, be it some idea of wind of magic, place of power etc. which all comes to extra + or - to skill roll and fast enough since it would be resolved in a single roll. Then bolt on the usage of threshold or corruption for fast casting.
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Old 09-11-2017, 02:27 AM   #22
Christopher R. Rice
 
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

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Originally Posted by JaJacob View Post
Well RPM is best starting point for what I'm picturing, both flavor and mechanic wise.
Good! That's half the fight I've found.

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Originally Posted by JaJacob View Post
I will go with classic RPM threshold with energy accumulation if I won't figure out anything else. It's very solid and represents close enough what I want. Most likely I would introduce extra dice for accumulation, depending on wind of magic.
I've seen the WHF magic done this way in the past. It seems to work well enough.


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Originally Posted by JaJacob View Post
Effect shaping RPM is also strong candidate. It looks like it would be the simplest to manage in game. Very fluid to represent all the variables to casting, be it some idea of wind of magic, place of power etc. which all comes to extra + or - to skill roll and fast enough since it would be resolved in a single roll. Then bolt on the usage of threshold or corruption for fast casting.
ES-RPM is where I started with my gramarye magic for my Ceteri campaign. It's worked very well so far.
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Old 09-11-2017, 10:26 PM   #23
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

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Originally Posted by Ghostdancer View Post
I've seen the WHF magic done this way in the past. It seems to work well enough.
WHF? Please define, thanks!
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Old 09-11-2017, 10:40 PM   #24
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

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WHF? Please define, thanks!
It's "Warhammer Fantasy" and he's specifically referring to their magic system (I think)
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Old 09-12-2017, 01:11 AM   #25
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

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Originally Posted by Ghostdancer View Post
It's "Warhammer Fantasy" and he's specifically referring to their magic system (I think)
Yes this is correct. Oh how I thought I was being somewhat original, when I came up with some idea of magical storms and winds that would carry magic around.

Then googling for inspiration and discovering Warhammer fantasy had winds of magic and Stormlight archive had similar magical storms it just made me go "Oh...". Great sources of ideas though :).
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Old 09-12-2017, 04:43 AM   #26
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

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Originally Posted by JaJacob View Post
Yes this is correct. Oh how I thought I was being somewhat original, when I came up with some idea of magical storms and winds that would carry magic around.

Then googling for inspiration and discovering Warhammer fantasy had winds of magic and Stormlight archive had similar magical storms it just made me go "Oh...". Great sources of ideas though :).
I've found there are no original ideas when it comes to world-building (or fiction) only original executions.
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Old 09-12-2017, 04:59 PM   #27
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

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Originally Posted by JaJacob View Post
Yes this is correct. Oh how I thought I was being somewhat original, when I came up with some idea of magical storms and winds that would carry magic around.

Then googling for inspiration and discovering Warhammer fantasy had winds of magic and Stormlight archive had similar magical storms it just made me go "Oh...". Great sources of ideas though :).
The Coldfire Trilogy is another fantasy series with magic being effected by storms, earthquakes, large scale fires, etc.
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Old 09-12-2017, 11:15 PM   #28
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

I would argue for energy accumulation, with a lot of fluctuation in the Mana Zone. Mana storms would be some sort of wild mana. The ability to cast in combat without charms can be covered by having the equivalent of powerstones. That is, instead of accumulating the magic on the Fly release the magic that you have stored previously. This is also the way that RPM magery works. Also, play up the quirks subsystem of the energy accumulation method for extra wildness in the magic.
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Old 09-13-2017, 09:01 AM   #29
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

@evileeyore Didn't know about that. Thanks for the tip.

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Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
I would argue for energy accumulation, with a lot of fluctuation in the Mana Zone. Mana storms would be some sort of wild mana. The ability to cast in combat without charms can be covered by having the equivalent of powerstones. That is, instead of accumulating the magic on the Fly release the magic that you have stored previously. This is also the way that RPM magery works. Also, play up the quirks subsystem of the energy accumulation method for extra wildness in the magic.
Yea energy accumulation is very tempting. I'll take a stab at it too for sure.

As a little update, I did flesh out how the effect shaping could work.

First, the following Winds and their corresponding paths and domains:
  • Grey wind - Path of Shadows (domain: darkness, illusions)

  • Yellow wind - Path of Fire (domain: fire, light)

  • Blue wind - Path of Heavens (domain: weather, lightning, air)

  • Red wind - Path of Blood (domain: body and mind of humans, demons)

  • Purple wind - Path of Death (domain: necromancy, undead, decay, disease)

  • Green wind - Path of Nature (domain: body and mind of beasts, living nature - plants, spirits and water)

  • Brown wind -Path of Matter (domain: earth - unliving nature like rocks, materials, metals)

  • White wind - Path of Magic and Crossroads (domain: meta magic, teleportation)


It is fairly similar enough to cover RPM Paths, but with some deviations and splitting of effects.

Next, a table of Winds of Magic:

Roll 4d6 ---- Modifier
4 ---------- (Twisted Mana) Reroll for modifier
5 ---------- (-9)
6 ---------- (-8)
7 ---------- (-7)
8 ---------- (-6)
9 ---------- (-5)
10 ---------- (-4)
11 ---------- (-3)
12 ---------- (-2)
13 ---------- (-1)
14 ---------- (0)
15 ---------- (+1)
16 ---------- (+2)
17 ---------- (+3)
18 ---------- (+4)
19 ---------- (+5)
20 ---------- (+6)
21 ---------- (+7)
22 ---------- (+8)
23 ---------- (+9)
24 ---------- (Wild Mana) Reroll for modifier

The table covers zones from Very low mana to Very High, with 2 special mana zones at critical rolls, indicating a storm. GM could roll once a week or several times a day, depending on the area of the world.

Effect Shaping:

- Spells have modifiers anywhere between -2 and -20, with an extra -10 on top if you want to cast them in 1 second.

Two options of integrating threshold mechanic for fast casting:
  1. - Figure out the conversion ratio between a modifier and a number of tally. It works out that you can take a double of spell modifier for its difficulty, that's the spells tally.

    Example casting:

    - Classic Fireball spell with Path of Fire (-2) -> modifier -2*2 = 4

    The cost to cast the spell in one second is 4 tally.

    - Mass Raise Dead (raises group of 21-50 zombies for a week) spell with Path of Death (-18) -> -18*2 = 36

    The spell would cost 36 tally to cast in one second.

    This would be used with default threshold limits in Thaumatology: 30 tally / 8 refresh per day.

    Thought process: RPM Threshold multiplies the default by 5 for 150 tally (for adepts), if you divide back the spell energy cost by 5, rounding up, you end up with a value that is double of the negative effect shaping modifier for difficulty. Which of course works, since you divided the energy by 10 to find the modifier to begin with. For number of spells, it works more or less the same. 7 weaker, ~20 energy spells, 2-3 higher powered ~60 energy spells and a single powerful spell.

  2. - Instead counting out the threshold with modifiers like in the example before, just run it along on the side line. If someone wants to cast in 1 second, just take the energy of the spell, since you have it anyway. Then use the RPM Threshold of 150/50.

Personally, I like better the first method. You can use the calamity rolls as they are and it is also easier to keep track of tally that goes only up to 30.

Magery works as is in effect shaping. But I could see it go two ways either as some sort of limitation of the ability to tap into Threshold or the opposite - allow extra positive modifiers up to Magery level as a dangerous way to further exploit winds of magic, where the modifier value would be taken as extra tally or better yet, corruption points.

I would go with allowing extra positive modifiers, to have a chance of offsetting (or empowering) the extra modifiers Winds can carry. And as a lure of that extra power, that of course corrupts.
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Old 09-13-2017, 09:34 AM   #30
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Default Re: [Magic] RPM, Paths, Realms - So many variants, but which one to choose?

My big mistake when first trying RPM was introducing it in a game where only one PC was a mage. About 75% of game time was spent with everyone watching that player do stuff: making rolls, proposing new rituals that could solve whatever predicament the party found itself in, determining effects and interactions, strategizing ways magic could solve problems, deciding whether a certain ritual was "fair" or whether the rules support it, etc., etc.

A lot of this was bad GM-ing on my part, of course. I could have just cut that player off every time and tried to come up with reasons to say "no, you can't do that because...", and eventually I told him he can only cast rituals in-game that we had already previously agreed upon (this weakened the mage significantly, which didn't really matter because he remained many times more powerful than the other party members), which helped.

I also tried to simplify RPM by not including charms. This too was a mistake, as many people here on the forums pointed out, because a big part of the balancing factor for RPM seems to be the existence of other mages who can dispel your rituals or turn them against you, and they need to be ready to do that with charms if it's an action-packed type of game (this was meant to be an Indiana Jones style pulp action campaign).

I kind of gave up on RPM after that. I've had a lot of luck with the standard Magic system, having used it for decades now. It's actually part of what originally drew me to GURPS. I have had no difficulty modifying it for various games by excluding certain spells, writing lots and lots of new spells, and using some of the many good suggestions in Thaumatology for modifying the basic system. Some of these modifications can create a totally different "feel" to magic and make it suitable for all kinds of games.
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