Thaumatology: Practices, Revisited

[dataweaver]

So: on pp.192–193 of GURPS Thaumatology, there's an option for Syntactic Magic called “Practices”. This option focuses not so much on what magic can do as on how it's done: specifically, what does the magician do to work magic? It's written specifically with Syntactic Magic (that is, Verb-Noun Magic or Realm Magic) in mind; but it can be expanded beyond that. The purpose of this thread is to revise and expanded on it, turning it into a general-purpose toolkit on how to work magic.

Spells or Rituals?
The first issue to address is what framework you're going to use. There are three existing ones: Spell Casting (pp.B235–238) and two varieties of Ritual Performance: Effect Shaping (pp.125–134) and Energy Accumulating (pp.134–137). The first is tactical, and typically requires a handful of seconds to cast a spell; the other two are strategic and take minutes, hours, or even longer to work a ritual. Spell Casting also has a Ceremonial variant (p.B238) that's more like performing a ritual.

Existing options for these focus mainly on Spell Casting: there's Alternate Magic Rituals (pp.36–38) which include No Rituals, Cultural and Personal Ritual Styles, and Flexible Rituals; and Ceremonial Magic gets retooled in Pyramid 3/28 (“Ceremonial Magic Made Easy”) in a way that more closely resembles the Effect Shaping framework.

I should emphasize that the Cultural and Personal Ritual Styles option on p.37 covers a lot of ground in terms of adjusting how magic is done with virtually no mechanical crunch.

Material Components and Sacrifices
These are already an integral part of the Ritual Performance frameworks, and Pyramid 3/28 adds them to Ceremonial Magic as well. Finally, The optional Magical Ingredients rule on p.M8 incorporates the notion of material components into Spell Casting. While written with Enchanting in mind, Pyramid 3/68’s article “the Material Difference” could easily be generalized as a way of using magical materials to replace energy costs in Spell Casting and Ceremonial Magic, and even in Energy Accumulating Rituals.

I mentioned sacrifices as well because the difference between a consumable component and a sacrifice is minute, and possibly even nonexistent. On the other hand, material components in the Ritual Performance frameworks often include non-consumable materials that are there because their properties or even merely their symbolism facilitates the casting. For Spell Casting, the closest you get to this are the Mandatory and Significant Modifiers (pp.82–90).

Practices and Sorcery
This applies more widely than just Sorcery, TBH; but:

As written, Sorcery is virtually Practice-free. Casting a Sorcery spell requires a turn off concentration and the expenditure of one point of energy; the isn't even a need for gestures or chanting, and there's certainly no need for any material components. This can be changed relatively easily with a few -10% Limitations from Power-Ups 8: Limitations, namely Requires Gestures, Requires Magic Words, and Requires Material Component. The latter doesn't represent consumable components; for that, use Trigger (p.B115). If you're going to require an activity from the Sorcerer, you might also want to consider Requires (Skill) Roll (p.PU8-17) to make sure you get the motions and words right. Thaumatology would be an appropriate Skill to use for the most part; but you might also consider Specialization by College. And the advice on p.74 about alternate Core Skills for Ritual Magic applies just as well to this.

What if you're creating a Sorcery Ceremony? That is, there are some things where it makes sense to insist on something closer to Ceremonial Magic or Ritual Performance. For such things, my gut instinct would be to go with Preparation Required, which requires anywhere from one minute to eight hours before you can complete the ceremony. I'd consider Preparation Required to include The three aforementioned Supernaturally Appropriate Accessibility Limitations (gestures, words, and materials), but I'd recommend Requires (Skill) Roll on top of that. I'd also consider taking a cue from p.82 (“Ceremonial-Only Casting”) and allow Sorcerous Ceremonies to benefit from Mandatory and Significant Modifiers while keeping them off-limits to Sorcerous Spells.

Coda
So: with that in mind, and noting that Syntactic Magic is based on the Spell Casting rules, is there anything covered by the Practices section (pp.192–193) that isn't addressed by the above?

[Kax]

Practices is a set of setting switches and decisions, as it's the meta-framework under which you apply the rules that match the restrictions and allowances that match the chosen switches.

For example, you could have a set of switches described by Practices that has a magic system that uses the rules from RPM and Alchemy and Sorcery but is considered a single cohesive Practice by it's users and teachers.

It is the meta-layer between the setting description and the rules. That gives you the rules decisions.

I think you're trying to get rules details from the wrong layer. :)