Magical traditions

[Lameth]

So I am running a secret magic modem game and I need some advice. In the real world there are various types of magic traditions , such as voodoo, Wicca, british-Egyptian ritual, and ect. As an example, Wicca has many facets, from a old women in the woods with some twigs and dirt, to the witch calling the towers with Latin circles scribed around her holding a sword.

In my game magic is magic, period,,,there are not types of magic. And to do magic you need to have will, power, knowledge, and belief.

But my issue comes to let's say a ritual of calling the towers, very witch. And a person that does not know anything about what a tower is or witch lore, tries to do it, should it work in your opinion? Or to use a ritual of a culture (west African, Greek, ect) do you need to have certain perks or advantages or skills to even try to do it all? Basically is simply following the rote of the ritual good enough?

The reason this comes up I have a player that is s Wicca and another that is a sorcerer spell caster..if a ritual of calling the towers is found, should they both be able to use it, and if not, what makes where only a "witch" may use it?

I'm looking to run a "realistic " secret horror magic game so I'm trying to be somewhat "real" and logical and not say "well you have this advantage and only you can you this ritual"..that's cheesy and makes "classes" instead of how it would be.

Help please, thank you!!

[Nosforontu]

I am assuming that you are running a RPM game for the purposes of my answer. If not my apologies.

A few things I would do using your examples.
1: Use the Rules for Higher Purpose [Magical Tradition] to seperate the various magical styles. This will create a +1 - +3 bonus to any ritual the GM decides fits the style (as an example your calling the towers ritual would be bumped for the Wiccan)

2: Float that bonus to Thaumatology rolls to decipher or master found grimoires, perhaps adding in penalites to master rituals that are very different to the Higher Purpose [Magical Tradidtion] that a different tradition has.

3: Potentially restrict characters from taking Ritual Path Mastery perks for Rituals that do not recieve a bonus from their Higher Purpose [Magical Tradition]

4: Potentially restrict or reduce the bonus value for Grimoires for Rituals that do not recieve the Higher Purpose [Magical Tradition]

[Lameth]

No I not using ritual magic. The system is based around that each spell or ritual is a skill unto itself.

I hope this helps with the answers

[Nosforontu]

Which magic system are you using for Gurps? Is it a custom system or one of the ones already in the game and you are tweaking around the edges?

[Lameth]

Custom basically

Each spell is a skill. And I was thinking about making it super hard unless you have certain skills or perks.

Let's say a witch
She wants to do calling the tower
It's a vh-10 skill.
And then she has Wicca perks and skills that make it doable. So someone without would not be able to unless they got those skills and perks.

Does this make sense.? Any help or redirecting advice is fine. Thx

[Nosforontu]

What about stealing the optional specialization rules where say a Wiccan caster would be able to purchase newly found Wiccan spells as MH skills instead of MVH skills but would be at -2 to her skill level.

Additionally you could design them as base spells (you did mention that magic is magic) and offer up magical tradition techniques that mod the spell that are unique to each tradition.

Overall the system seems doable its just a matter of how much difference you want and how much work making the traditions different you want to detail out for the characters.