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Old 06-20-2018, 10:04 AM   #21
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Nope, another creeping nomenclature problem. ritual Path Magic is nothign to do functionally with either Ritual Magic (4e) or Path/Book Magic. It's a system for improvising generalized magical effects that (usually) requires time spent on rituals.
I wouldn't quite go that far. It is its own thing; but it's related to Energy-Accumulating Path/Book Magic in a manner similar to how Noun/Verb Magic is related to Spell-Casting Magic: it uses the same engine to work magic, but replaces a preset “ritual list” with a system for making up your own rituals on the fly.

But it is its own thing. In particular, the way it deals with enchantment is something separate from how Path/Book Magic deals with enchantment — which is to say, the latter mostly doesn't deal with it.
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Old 06-20-2018, 10:08 AM   #22
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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Nope, another creeping nomenclature problem. ritual Path Magic is nothign to do functionally with either Ritual Magic (4e) or Path/Book Magic. It's a system for improvising generalized magical effects that (usually) requires time spent on rituals.
The fact the RPM seems to take some of the pictures from GURPS Voodoo only adds to the confusion.
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Old 06-20-2018, 10:10 AM   #23
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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The bolded parts are more inline with 3e Ritual Magic or Power Investiture then the standard magic system. And yet somehow in less then a decade they go from ritual magic to standard.
I see you completely ignored my response to this. Not surprising, since you seem rather invested in the idea that pre-Hellstorm magic had to work according to the rules of Path/Book Magic. But it doesn't; and it's only your insistence otherwise that's creating the problem you mention in the last sentence quoted here.
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Old 06-20-2018, 10:20 AM   #24
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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I see you completely ignored my response to this. Not surprising, since you seem rather invested in the idea that pre-Hellstorm magic had to work according to the rules of Path/Book Magic. But it doesn't; and it's only your insistence otherwise that's creating the problem you mention in the last sentence quoted here.
<shrug> He seems dogmatically incapable of even entertaining the idea that pre-Trinity event beliefs about how the Laws of Magic worked were as incorrect as pre-Newtonian beliefs about how the Laws of Physics worked.

The parts of "old trad" spells that were changed to make them more functional could well have been the removal of the spirit-involing parts to concentrate on the "shaping oz particle flux" part.
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Old 06-20-2018, 11:01 AM   #25
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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I see you completely ignored my response to this. Not surprising, since you seem rather invested in the idea that pre-Hellstorm magic had to work according to the rules of Path/Book Magic.
Why would it work in other manner given the way magic is thought to work in the "real" world? Heck, "Magic in Roma Arcana is either ritual magic, based on an underlying skill, or clerical magic, granted by a god or powerful spirit" (Fantasy 207) so why would the underlying mechanics different on Merlin-1? The Blessed advantage with its "You are attuned to a god, demon lord, great spirit, cosmic power, etc." is known to exist on Merlin and in 3e it could work as a mageryless form of magic.

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<shrug> He seems dogmatically incapable of even entertaining the idea that pre-Trinity event beliefs about how the Laws of Magic worked were as incorrect as pre-Newtonian beliefs about how the Laws of Physics worked.
"Ritual magic is traditionally associated with metaphysical systems in which spirits and similar entities are important Some versions even assume that all rituals – and perhaps all magical operations – work by invoking and commanding spirits. This is particularly the case with Effect Shaping magic, where the basic idea is that spirits can provide any energy the task requires, but the magician must perform the ritual correctly to get them to do his bidding." - GURPS Thaumatology pg 159

Prayers, the oral rituals of shamanism and Voudoun (ie Voodoo) all work along these lines which is how the pre-manastorm spells that actually worked were designed: "Old Trad spells often invoked the power of ancestors, spirits, saints, angels, demons or divinity."

So you have spells built around what amounts to Ritual Magic somehow resulting in the "standard" magic system. But how do you go from that to the standard system? Remember that by 1948 they had enough information for university to actually have paraphysics departments. They only magic based theory they would have had at that stage of research would be the ritual magic traditions of clerics, shamanism, and Voudoun.

Up to a point Newtonian physics explains how the world works; it was its inability to explain things like light and magnetism that lead to its replacement by Einstein and Mach. So for Merlin-1's history to make any sense there has to be an overlap between what eventually came out and the defacto standard magic and Ritual Magic system don't have much of one.

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
The parts of "old trad" spells that were changed to make them more functional could well have been the removal of the spirit-involing parts to concentrate on the "shaping oz particle flux" part.
The problem here is spells based on the ritual magic model worked. The one thing science does is it goes with an idea until it runs into things it can't explain and either improves or replaces the cosmology. The oz particle wasn't even detected nor the hypothesized of involving it until 1960...the same year that the first post-graduate degrees in magical theory in granted (Berkeley and University of New Mexico).

That is 4 years for the Bachelor with 1-2 years for a Master minimum...meaning the students started 1955 or 1954. Those students had to have a system to learn magic and it sure wasn't "shaping oz particle flux". Trying to say they did is akin to saying someone in 1909 understood time dilation and the twin paradox.

Last edited by maximara; 06-20-2018 at 12:13 PM.
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Old 06-20-2018, 11:59 AM   #26
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

Setting aside the question of whether magic works at all in the “real world”, the world of Technomancer isn't the “real world”. It's an alternate reality where magic works according to laws that conform to the Spell-casting system found in the Basic Set, and explicitly do not conform to the Effect-Shaping system found in Voodoo, Old West, Spirits, and by extension Thaumatology:
Ritual Magic, and the associated magic system from GURPS Voodoo, is not part of this setting.
—p.77
If the author had wanted Ritual Magic to be used to model pre-Hellstorm magic in the world of Technomancer, he could easily have done so. Instead, he deliberately and explicitly excluded it from the setting.
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Old 06-20-2018, 12:55 PM   #27
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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Why would it work in other manner given the way magic is thought to work in the "real" world? .
Because it's a _different_ world.

Infinity knows of many worlds where magic the way it is portrayed in the standard mana-based system but it also knows of worlds where it works completely differently.

Then there are the worlds where magic that produces tangible results is completely unknown. Homeline seems to be one of them.

There are probably even more worlds where the Laws of Physics work differently than they do on Homeline.
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Old 06-20-2018, 01:17 PM   #28
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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I'll give the last, but given that Technomancer is built around the standard system, switching sounds like far more trouble then it's worth.
I did it with my Gamma World Fantasy mash-up world... so it's not that hard. It does require Player buy in and some hand waving.

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Technomancer depends upon mass-produced magic items, doing this could require PCs to pay points for every piece of gear they own.
All that requires is the GM to give the PCs a 'magic item' point budget.



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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Nope, another creeping nomenclature problem. ritual Path Magic is nothign to do functionally with either Ritual Magic (4e) or Path/Book Magic. It's a system for improvising generalized magical effects that (usually) requires time spent on rituals.
I really wish they'd come up with a more different name for RPM.
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Old 06-20-2018, 03:36 PM   #29
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
Setting aside the question of whether magic works at all in the “real world”, the world of Technomancer isn't the “real world”. It's an alternate reality where magic works according to laws that conform to the Spell-casting system found in the Basic Set, and explicitly do not conform to the Effect-Shaping system found in Voodoo, Old West, Spirits, and by extension Thaumatology:
Ritual Magic, and the associated magic system from GURPS Voodoo, is not part of this setting.
—p.77
If the author had wanted Ritual Magic to be used to model pre-Hellstorm magic in the world of Technomancer, he could easily have done so. Instead, he deliberately and explicitly excluded it from the setting.
As I pointed out before Technomancer was back when authors of GURPS books tended to shove everything into the standard Magery system even if it made no sense to do just so the player only had to worry about getting GURPS Fantasy/Magic and maybe the Grimoire. Even after the Compendiums came out (1996) you were lucky if GURPS Religion's system was even mentioned.

The only magic systems that existed Technomancer (1998) came out were: standard, the psudo-Clerical system of Fantasy/Magic, the Magic Power of 1e Supers (1990-2000), "true" clerical magic (1996) and the Voodoo system (1996).

Voodoo and its more general cousin Spirits have key differences from 4e core Ritual Magic system:

1) Voodoo/Spirits didn't use magery or mana; 4e Ritual Magic does.

2) "By default, spirit powers are considered spiritual rather than magical in nature and are unaffected by Magic Resistance" (GURPS Spirits 74) and no where in the entire book does GURPS Voodoo even mention Magic Resistance; by contrast "Magic Resistance protects against all magical spells, whether cast via standard Magery, Ritual Path Magery, Power Investiture, and so on." (Thaumatology - RPM pg 5)

3) the psudo-Clerical system of Fantasy/Magic is not explicitly excluded from Merlin-1 and neither is the system of GURPS Religion. Thaumatology added the joy of Power Investiture as Modified Magery which per GURPS Religion: "Clerics use the same spell list as mages. However, clerical spells draw their power from a different source, and vary from their magical equivalents in a number of other ways."

4)"More involved options include spells from GURPS Magic – see Power Investiture (Shamanic) (p. 66) for suggestions – and the rituals under The Path of Spirit (pp. 159-162). see Power Investiture (Shamanic) (p. 66) for suggestions – and the rituals under The Path of Spirit (pp. 159-162)." - Thaumatology 209 Here we have Shamanic magic (which did/does exist on Merlin-1) that is NOT the Voodoo system at all but rather the GURPS Religion system.

There are enough differences to say that 3e Voodoo/Spirits is not the same 4e Ritual Magic: the MR thing is key here. It certainly didn't help that 3e couldn't make up its mind on how to model things like Voodoo: Voodoo-Spirits had their own idea and Religion had another and the two were not in agreement...at all.

Then you have all the other system 4e Magic got: Syntactic Magic and Symbol Magic boht of which logically should have existed on Merlin-1

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Old 06-20-2018, 04:34 PM   #30
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Default Re: Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

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As I pointed out before Technomancer was back when authors of GURPS books tended to shove everything into the standard Magery system even if it made no sense to do just so the player only had to worry about getting GURPS Fantasy/Magic and maybe the Grimoire. Even after the Compendiums came out (1996) you were lucky if GURPS Religion's system was even mentioned.
Yes, you've pointed that out. But it's irrelevant in this case, because the entire concept of Technomancer was that it's a world where magic operates according to the spell-casting rules and interacts with technology in interesting ways. Ritual Magic want excluded because of an anti-RM bias at SJGames; it was excluded because it didn't fit the concept.

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The only magic systems that existed Technomancer (1998) came out were: standard, the psudo-Clerical system of Fantasy/Magic, the Magic Power of 1e Supers (1990-2000), "true" clerical magic (1996) and the Voodoo system (1996).
And Psionics, and chi skills, and the Enthrallment skills, etc. Again, not relevant to Technomancer.

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Voodoo and its more general cousin Spirits have key differences from 4e core Ritual Magic system:
Let me make sure we're on the same page here (literally): when you say “4e core Ritual Magic system”, are you referring to the system found in Thaumatology pp.72–76? Or are you referring to the system found in Thaumatology on pp.121–165?

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1) Voodoo/Spirits didn't use magery or mana; 4e Ritual Magic does.
The use of Magery is irrelevant; the use of Mana is optional.

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2) "By default, spirit powers are considered spiritual rather than magical in nature and are unaffected by Magic Resistance" (GURPS Spirits 74); by contrast default Magery (Path/Book) is affected by Magic Resistance.
Granted. But so what? This amounts to a Minor adjustment to the rules, smaller than the change that occurred between Voodoo and Spirits. It's still essentially the same system.

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3) the psudo-Clerical system of Fantasy/Magic is not explicitly excluded from Merlin-1 and neither is the system of GURPS religion. Thaumatology added the joy of Power Investiture as Modified Magery which per GURPS Religion: "Clerics use the same spell list as mages. However, clerical spells draw their power from a different source, and vary from their magical equivalents in a number of other ways."
Fair enough. But this has nothing to do with Ritual Magic or Path/Book Magic.

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4)"More involved options include spells from GURPS Magic – see Power Investiture (Shamanic) (p. 66) for suggestions – and the rituals under The Path of Spirit (pp. 159-162). see Power Investiture (Shamanic) (p. 66) for suggestions – and the rituals under The Path of Spirit (pp. 159-162)." - Thaumatology 209 Here we have Shamanic magic (which did/does exist on Merlin-1) that is NOT the Voodoo system at all.
Here we have a section in the “Magic as Powers” chapter pointing out that There Is More Than One Way To Do It. Which actually supports my point, that it's entirely possible and reasonable to model shamanic magic using the regular magic system. There's no need to complicate matters by bringing in an entirely different game engine.

I'm not saying that you can't do it; just that it isn't the “natural fit” that you asserted in your first post.

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There are enough differences to say that 3e Voodoo/Spirits is not the same 4e Ritual Magic: the MR thing is key here. It certainly didn't help that 3e couldn't make up its mind on how to model things like Voodoo: Voodoo-Spirits had their own idea and Religion had another and the two were not in agreement...at all.
First of all, I'll be the first to admit that Path/Book Magic isn't identical to the Ritual Magic found in GURPS Spirits. But the differences aren't really changes in the essence of the thing so much as they're revisions and expansions. It's still, at its core, the same system that was explicitly excluded from Technomancer.

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Then you have all the other system 4e Magic got: Syntactic Magic and Symbol Magic boht of which logically should have existed on Merlin-1
Rune magic was also explicitly excluded from the setting. Syntactic Magic wasn't; but the way the regular magic system is set up, it's something that needs to be explicitly I if it's going to officially be part of a setting — largely because when it is included, it tends to replace the spell list.
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