Buying Magic Spells as Equipment

[JMD]

Hi all,

I am running a Gurps game based on the dot Hack anime/game series and, for those of you in the dark, the main plot takes place in a MMORPG where taking hundreds of hours to learn a spell is not feasible. I have been searching and thinking and cannot find a way in which selling spells through a vendor does not turn into a huge project to me (pricing each individually.) I would prefer to have an equation I can apply so that I can calculate on the fly and adjust accordingly.

Any thoughts?

[munin]

Dungeon Fantasy 3 has a fee schedule for adding capabilities. It suggests $40 for the first character point in a spell, and $20 for each additional point.

A common convention is that mages can learn spells from scrolls. Dungeon Fantasy 4 has rules for buying scrolls: $20 per energy point it costs to cast the spell.

Another way to do it, in keeping with RPG conventions, is to base the spell cost on its prerequisite count, say $20 + $20/prereq. That way the early spells will cost less and the spells you learn later will cost more. GURPS Magic and GURPS Thaumatology both have different lists of prerequisite counts, one including advantages and the other not.

[JMD]

Thanks for your reply.

I had thought of the $/energy point one, but discounted it since some spells are a range of FP. Same thing with paying by CP, since they could buy it at attribute -2 for 1 point or at +0 for 4 and so on.

As for $+$/prereq I like that idea, but some spells can be quite powerful and have very few prereqs, but that's the best so far. I'd be willing to use that and tweak as needed for those few unique cases of powerful spells with few prereqs.

[MKMcArtor]

Originally Posted by JMD

I am running a Gurps game based on the dot Hack anime/game series

I love the .hack in-in-game universe. Are you going to play within The World or play it as the PCs are players in the game?

[JMD]

I only loosely based it on the anime/games, but I love them as well!

The players have two characters, a 75 point (with 25 disad) "real-life" character living in Tokyo circa 2035, and 200 point "avatars" that they play within the vr world with no disadvantages. The RL characters' disadvantages translate into the game world (bloodlust, selfishness..etc), but their physical traits such as perception have no bearing. The character in the game has a perception as well, and when they notice things it tells the player by outlining it on their HUD.

So far it's been very successful. Player death is handled by allowing them 5 minutes to be resurrected, and after that they lose 1 CP and are transported to their last Root Town.

The plot is starting to expand beyond the VR world, however, so their RL character's physical skills will come into play soon enough.

[MKMcArtor]

That is a really cool setup! Good job emulating the dual aspects of the IP!! :D

[JMD]

Originally Posted by MKMcArtor

That is a really cool setup! Good job emulating the dual aspects of the IP!! :D

Thanks! Everyone seems to be really enjoying it. I love running games with odd quirks (controlling two characters at the same time even though they are really one character, for example.) I did another similar thing where the party jumped through time between their child and adult bodies, and had completely different classes for each (this was DnD back in the good ole days.)

[ClassifiedTSBBR]

Originally Posted by JMD

Thanks for your reply.

I had thought of the $/energy point one, but discounted it since some spells are a range of FP. Same thing with paying by CP, since they could buy it at attribute -2 for 1 point or at +0 for 4 and so on.

As for $+$/prereq I like that idea, but some spells can be quite powerful and have very few prereqs, but that's the best so far. I'd be willing to use that and tweak as needed for those few unique cases of powerful spells with few prereqs.

Another option might be to make it a percentage of Magic Item costs (say 10% of the cheapest magic item cost, calculating spells that don't "do" items as base casting cost * 100, with area spells being calculated for a set radius [6 hex maybe?].

Or, as someone else mentioned scrolls, do a fixed multiplier of Scroll costs, or Spellstone costs (forex: 10 Spellstones must be consumed in studying the spell, roll vs. IQ+Magery, failure means buy another 10?)

[Randover]

I would offer another one. That I was toying with during previous campaign of mine. Under the headline of Improving your character is specification of Surgery use. The stated cost was $1000 per point added.

There were other catches as well. If you figure those out with translation Surgery=invasive and risky, learning spells=easier for magery 1-X and perhaps risky to.

I could easily see that the time of recovery=time of study.

Edit: My best guess is that if you increase $1000 by factor of 10-33 (20 would be my choice) you could drop roll, study time etc. Only two difficulty will remain. How to pay for new spells, and possibly the fact, that only few items are actualy for sale.

[John^2]

Sorry about the lack of creative input from me, but I really am amazed at the true universal nature of GURPS and how well it works for such a variety of settings. I will be honest and say I do like some games like Dark Heresy, Das Schwarze Auge or Paranoia for their respective settings/rules, but besides these exceptions, GURPS fills in the rest of what I want to play perfectly.

I can't think of a another system which would let you do such a cool mix and compatibility of modern times and CRPG MMO fantasy without missing a beat.