Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-15-2014, 11:40 AM   #11
DangerousThing
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Re: [THM] Realm-Based Syntactic Magic and Effect Shaping Paths

There is a couple of things I have problems with in your metaphysics and it's various magic systems. I think that you've come up with a fictional world and are now trying to put rules to it. Unfortunately this is difficult, because fiction is balanced by an author's plot. A GM can't do this because the players are the ones who mainly create the plot while the GM mainly creates the setting.

I think that you have several months before you can get all this down. Naming the the most difficult, while the realm based one might be the easiest if no PC can use it.

OK here are my thoughts on your various systems.

I didn't like PM for years until I actually understood it for the same reason I dislike one of the central premises: you are distancing man too far from nature. Even man can follow his own nature.

PM is a couple of things, and one of them is a Taoist story. Another is looking at it as not technology against nature, but rather greed vs nature. It isn't technology that was really the problem in PM, it was the greed of the human leaders who had gone against nature to increase their own power and wealth through bad technology. That is, technology isn't bad in itself, but the humans were using technology that was highly polluting in order to create extra wealth for the leaders.

I think that you've gone too far in separating mankind from nature. Mankind's intelligence sometimes gets in the way of him seeing the balance, of seeing his own nature. On the other hand, it also allows him to choose his way. And please don't forget certain other intelligent beings who can also choose, such as demons and dragons.

Sorry, but I had to get that out. :)

OK, your clerical system.

I'm very against calling what they do miracles. Mainly because people have different ideas about what the word means, but in almost all cases the miracle a are chosen by a deity, not by a man.

In addition, you are having them done at no cost to the pious priest. I prefer to think about an FP cost as a sacrifice rather than a cost. As a GM I think in terms of it balancing the game a bit.

I don't think I would base a naming system as realm based magic, unless each name is a realm. I'm not sure I'd ever do a system based on naming, because while it did well in the Earthsea stories, I can't imagine it as being done well in a game, except perhaps by the very best GMs (A-List GMs of which there might be a couple dozen in the world) who is absolutely trusted by his players. I'd leave this system for the extremely rare NPC. I would use Magery with naming, but as a limiter, with the various name skills having a limit of, like RPM, 12+Magery. I'd still base this around IQ.

Effect shaping has as many rituals as you want to write.

Right now my real based system is being held up purely by my haven't created enough rituals yet. I have many things in my system that must be done by rituals rather than as spells (in other words they take a long time to do, such as transmutation of elements and major spiritual linkages).

I don't know what you're giving normal mages. It should probably be balanced against the other systems that are allowed to players.

Good luck!
__________________
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Warning: Invertebrate Punnster - Spinelessly Unable to Resist a Pun
Dangerous Thoughts, my blog about GURPS and life.
DangerousThing is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2014, 11:46 PM   #12
Jinumon
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Re: [THM] Realm-Based Syntactic Magic and Effect Shaping Paths

Thanks to everyone for all of the feedback. I'll try to address each of your points in turn.

Quote:
Names clearly form some kind of hierarchy: you're a citizen of some country, a resident of a district, and you have an individual name. But you're also a mammal, a human, and a member of some ethnic group. Both of those name hierarchies validly apply to you. How do they relate to each other? This problem is usually faced by designers of library catalogue systems, and they don't have a good and all-encompassing solution. The nearest thing to a standard AFAIK, the Dewey Decimal system, presents a rather strange view of the structure of human knowledge and takes some work to use.

If you split Names into multiple realms, you have the problem of trying to make the realms roughly equally useful, and not having much cross-connection between them. That's quite hard.
This is a definite issue, and part of me feels like it's really going to come down to an arbitrary point of usefulness I'll have to decide. Is Wood as good as Water? Should I broaden the Name for Wood to something like Plant? Is that too broad? It's going to come down to a lot of judgement calls, and I understand that.

One of the possible solutions I've considered is to simply use the minimum cost for Realm-Based magic. Assuming there are at least dozens of potential Names, the number of Realms + Weaknesses will exceed 13, and drop the cost down to 1/2 of the standard pricing. Players will have opportunities to learn Names, and I can tell them when they ask whether or not Plant or Wood is too powerful.

Quote:
As for the effects? That is what techniques are for! Have the plkayer buy a new skill, called the same as the name, and use that to make techniques.

Sounds familiar? It should since this is what GURPS Pisonic powers books uses. That is what I would do for names.
This isn't a bad idea, although I'm not exactly sure what the translation of Psionic Power Suites to Realms of Power would be. I'll definitely look into it.

Quote:
If I were doing it I would require a CP to learn a name and what can be done with it.

However, after Chargen, I'd require namers to go out in the world or to hit the books or summon nasty creatures to learn new names.

Personally I think the players will really love the system, if you can maintain the balance between character growth and their expectations.
I probably should have prefaced the entire post with this, but I suppose I'll say now that players will not be able to start off with Names. Naming is an ancient and lost art, and the few people who can do it typically only know a single Name or two. It's almost impossible to teach Naming, and for those who are like the Namers of old are mainly crazy hermits and wandering pariahs and the like.

Again, the cost of only 1 CP seems a little cheap. Even a Word of Power costs 10 CP, and it (while very powerful) is extremely costly and not at all controlled.

Quote:
Another way to do Names would be to switch from Realm-based syntactic to Verb-Noun syntactic. That seems to fit more naturally in some ways, and the nouns table on p185 of Thaumatology forms a plausible starting point for a names heiriarchy.
I wish they gave similar guidelines for the cost of Realms based on usefulness. But the idea of Naming is that the subject is at your beck and call, not something that requires different command words. Unless I included a universal "Command" noun, and added the cost of it to every working of Names.... Another idea I'll look into.

Quote:
I think that you've gone too far in separating mankind from nature. Mankind's intelligence sometimes gets in the way of him seeing the balance, of seeing his own nature. On the other hand, it also allows him to choose his way. And please don't forget certain other intelligent beings who can also choose, such as demons and dragons.
This has been another difficult thing for me, and it's something I continue to struggle with. One thing I keep encountering in my world is sort of a repeated Chicken-vs-Egg conundrum. For example: I've decided that the Gods are relatively distant from mortals, but a higher power definitely exists. They answer prayers on a regular basis. But different religions all have their prayers answered. Do all of the Gods exist? Does one God answer all these prayers? Is there even a God, or do people's devotion cause good or bad karma to wash back what they ask for? Doesn't really matter. And I kind of like the mystery.

As far as whether or not humans are distinctly separate from the rest of the world, or whether they're the "younger brothers" of it (like how humanity was essentially angels v2.0 in the Bible) sort of remains to be seen.

And to clarify, the natural world doesn't dislike or disrespect humanity. But they recognize them as something of a wild-card. Something powerful, and something unpredictable.

Quote:
I don't think I would base a naming system as realm based magic, unless each name is a realm.
This was my plan, and I suppose that considering it's only allowed (at least at the start) for NPCs, the balancing issue can sit on the back burner a while.

Also Naming (while difficult) is essentially meant to be overpowered. It's sort of a fundamental force of creation. Expensive and difficult, but it's the sort of thing that a man who has mastered the Name of Fire can engulf a whole building in a blaze with little to no effort. But he'll probably have spent at least 50 on his mastery of that ability.

Quote:
I don't know what you're giving normal mages. It should probably be balanced against the other systems that are allowed to players.
Normal mages are effectively getting what comes straight out of the first few chapters of GURPS Magic. My idea of balancing has essentially come down to "is this system particularly better than traditional Magery?" Yes, No, and tweak from there.

Thanks again to everyone who's been tossing things out, it really means a lot. Hope to hear more from you.
Jinumon
Jinumon is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
magery, magic, ritual path magic, syntactic magic, thaumatology

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:20 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.