Ritual Magic (4e) in GURPS Technomancer

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Ritual Magic as defined by Basic 4e is learned and rigourously dependable sytem for improvising the same spell list used by standard Magic. That soem form of this existed before 1945 on Merlin-1 appears to be an idea without any particular support.

Even GURPS acknowledges the same thing that Authentic Thaumaturgy does: magic as it is thought to work in the real world is more along lines of Ritual Magic then the flashy "standard" magic system.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That some spells worked some times for people who didn't realy understand how magic works after 1945 implies nothing much in particular.

For there to be working spells there had to be some Thaumatology knocking around and odds are that Thaumatology was based on Ritual Magic rather then the "standard" magic system.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That those magical traditions evovled into the Berkeley Grimoire after 1945 mostly implies that they were primitive and poorly uderstood versions of standard Magic spells.

Again we go back to the underlying Thaumatology behind that magic which is expressly stated "Some spells predated the Hellstorm: prayers, the oral rituals of shamanism and Voudoun (ie Voodoo), formulae from old grimoires and Books of Shadows, etc. Many were useless, but a few worked as is, and more were modified into working order. Old Trad spells often invoked the power of ancestors, spirits, saints, angels, demons or divinity." (GURPS Technomancer pg 14)

That is the Thaumatology they had to work with: ritual magic. So how in the name of sam hill do you go from that to the "standard" prerequisite system? That is akin to being given Aristotle and within a decade coming up with Einstein and Mach.

Another wrinkle is Blessed exists on Merlin-1 (per the character on page 86) and per GURPS Magic one way to model that was for clerics to effectively be mageryless wizards: '10 points for one college, 12 for two, 15 for three) spells of other colleges could be learned but were castable only in high mana and above areas.' Yes they throw in "Wizards add Magery 2 [25] as
well." but it was redundant given the way Blessed could work in 3e.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

We can be rather certain of the suthor's intent vis-vis other forms of magic when Technomancer was written because nothing else besides Voodoo(Path/Book Magic) existed then.

Actually at that time (1998) GURPS 3e had at least five "systems" of magic: 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).

Heck, the Compendium (1996) didn't even mention Magic Power existing even though it was part of the GURPS system until 2e Supers came out in 2000 which effectively nixed it.

The author also subjected us to things that simply didn't make sense (see http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...&postcount=551 for the details on all the logic gaffs) I like the setting but there are some serious logic issues with the work.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by maximara

Even GURPS acknowledges the same thing that Authentic Thaumaturgy does: magic as it is thought to work in the real world is more along lines of Ritual Magic then the flashy "standard" magic system.
.

By the standards of how magic visibly works on Merlin-1 Authntic Thaumaturgy is wrong (on that world at the very least). People who held simiiar beliefs before 1945 could very, very easily have been wrong in their beliefs as well.

The argumnet that no spellcasting is possible without a workable system of thaumatology carries no weight in my mind. It's like saying refining metal was not possible before chemistry emerged as a science.

Trial and error and rules of thumb produce some results even before a viable scientific theory to explain them shows up.

There were also worldhopping wizards in Gurps even beofre Cabal was written.Technomancer also speculates (and notes a widely held public belief) that there was a previous age of normal mana on Merlin-1 in the long ago past. Somewhat workable spells could have easily been the poorly preserved hnad-me-downs of such worldhoppers or antediluvian wizards.

[dataweaver]

Also, here are some GURPS supplements that modeled real-world beliefs about magic using the regular magic system:

GURPS Aztecs
GURPS China
GURPS Egypt
GURPS Greece
GURPS Imperial Rome
GURPS Japan

…just to name a few. Just because magic resembles real-world beliefs, it does not follow that the rules of Path/Book Magic are involved.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Also, here are some GURPS supplements that modeled real-world beliefs about magic using the regular magic system:

GURPS Aztecs
GURPS China
GURPS Egypt
GURPS Greece
GURPS Imperial Rome
GURPS Japan

…just to name a few. Just because magic resembles real-world beliefs, it does not follow that the rules of Path/Book Magic are involved.

That was back when GURPS tried to shove everything into the standard Magery system even if it made no sense to do so so player only had to worry about getting GURPS Fantasy/Magic and maybe the Grimoire.

GURPS Religion even though it fit certain settings better then the magery system was downplayed (if it was even mentioned). Instead of asking 'what is the best way to model magic for this setting?' it was 'how can we kludge the GURPS Magic system into the setting?'

It was effectively square peg, round hole, very big sledgehammer for many of these settings.

GURPS China (1991) has mana behave similar to sanctuary with a -3 to spells roles outside "focal" points. Clerical (Sanctuary) magic (GURPS Religion) is not even mentioned enough though it would seem to fit what is being done better then the kludgy way they did it.

GURPS Egypt (1998/2004): there are hints that things are more like Rune magic then standard magic in the text of the book: "The basis of Egyptian spellcasting was the belief that every word had inherent power. By speaking or writing properly crafted sentences, one could bring about changes in the nature of things." But instead of doing something like that its back to the defacto standard system (ugh). Power Investiture is mentioned on page 78...and that is it for clerical magic in that book.

GURPS Greece (1994/2004): "The guidelines below will help the GM to recreate the tone of the Greek myths – full of artifice, herbalism and alchemy, rather than the kind of magic usually presented in fantasy campaigns. (...) Divination is the most common form of magic. (...) In GURPS terms, the mantis has the Blessed advantage (see p. 72) and can use Divination even without knowing the prerequisite spells." GURPS Religion at least gets a mention (pg 94) but how or when it would be used...not even hinted at.

GURPS Japan (1988/1999) was before anything other then the standard magic system existed so of course it was going to use that. While 2e took advantage of Grimore GURPS Religion was ignored.

GURPS Imperial Rome (1992/2000) mentioned Divination but didn't even try to use Blessed advantage and instead did them as if they were normal spells.
Fantasy's Roma Arcana is more detailed and uses what was believed back then to make its magic system: the result is Ritual Magic and Clerical (Power investiture) all over the place.

The mentality in GURPS classic was
Nail: this setting needs a magic system.
Hammer: use GURPS Magic and if we remember mention GURPS Religion.

IIRC GURPS Castle Falkenstein was the poster child of that nonsense as what would become 4e Ritual Magic would have far better fit but instead we got a poorly explained overly complex modified version of the standard magic system.

[scc]

maximara, I don't think you realize what the setting of Technomancer is all about. Magic back then made certain assumptions about the world, mainly so that any world it was used in would actually look like a normal fantasy RPG, chief among these fact that Mages are 1 in 100. I believe that the current version of Magic makes the same assumptions.

Now then, one day at some point a GURPS writer sat down a decided that he was going to work out how a world that actually had those assumptions would look like and the result was Technomancer.

This means that Technomancer is designed to work with the standard Magic system and ONLY THAT SYSTEM, YOU USE ANYTHING AND YOU ARE LIKELY TO BREAK THE SETTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chief among the outcome of this is that enchanted items are EVERYWHERE, you LITERALLY can NOT get a burger without an enchanted item being used to prepare it. Now my copy of RPM isn't available at the moment, but from what I remember enchanted items are RARE under that system.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by scc

This means that Technomancer is designed to work with the standard Magic system and ONLY THAT SYSTEM, YOU USE ANYTHING AND YOU ARE LIKELY TO BREAK THE SETTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is fundamentally untrue.

Sure, care needs to be taken, but it's not unpossible or even ill advised.

Now my copy of RPM isn't available at the moment, but from what I remember enchanted items are RARE under that system.

Also fundamentally false. What might cause enchanted items to be limited in a given campaign using RPM is that they are based on Powers (ie Advantages as Powers using snappily modified Gadget rules). Many Players are loathe to put points into Gadgets when they could just as readily get the Advantages themselves.

[dataweaver]

RPM isn't under discussion here; just Path/Book Magic and regular magic. (And for some reason, maximara seems to be insisting on bringing clerical magic into the discussion as well.) To me, the answer is simple: real-world magical beliefs can be shoehorned into the regular magic system even if it's not always ideal to do so; and in the case of the world of Technomancer, doing so has the benefit of not having to figure out how the world's metaphysics transitioned from working according to the rules of an alternate magic system (be it something clerical or one of the Path/Book options) to working according to the rules of spell magic. If you want to have some mechanical crunch behind the bit about such spells working by calling on gods, spirits, and so on, you can get that far more effectively by allowing Assisting Spirits to teach the handful of spells that actually functioned before the Hellstorm.

This has the additional benefit of conforming to the setting as the author envisioned it: he had a choice to allow the 3e counterpart of Path Magic to potentially exist in the setting, but he explicitly excluded it. And Spirit-Assisted magic is very much compatible with the setting, even if the most likely spirits post-Hellstorm are demons.

Again, feel free to do it however you like in your own games. If it works for you, that's all that matters. But by the same token, stop trying to insist that everybody else needs to agree with you. There are plenty of good reasons not to add Path/Book Magic to the mix.

That said: if I were to add it, I'd almost certainly go with Books rather than Paths, with an emphasis on how each Book is narrow in focus with only a handful of functional Rituals, and comparable to Hidden Lore in terms of how hard it is to find and use. That matches the paragraph you've been quoting, where most pre-Hellstorm spells didn't work but a few did. I would definitely not go with Paths, as they're too broadly applicable and easy to access. If probably also go with the Energy-Accumulating model, as that feels more similar to spell magic than Effect-Shaping does.

[scc]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

This is fundamentally untrue.

Sure, care needs to be taken, but it's not unpossible or even ill advised.

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.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Also fundamentally false. What might cause enchanted items to be limited in a given campaign using RPM is that they are based on Powers (ie Advantages as Powers using snappily modified Gadget rules). Many Players are loathe to put points into Gadgets when they could just as readily get the Advantages themselves.

Technomancer depends upon mass-produced magic items, doing this could require PCs to pay points for every piece of gear they own.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

RPM isn't under discussion here; just Path/Book Magic and regular magic. (And for some reason, maximara seems to be insisting on bringing clerical magic into the discussion as well.) To me, the answer is simple: real-world magical beliefs can be shoehorned into the regular magic system even if it's not always ideal to do so; and in the case of the world of Technomancer, doing so has the benefit of not having to figure out how the world's metaphysics transitioned from working according to the rules of an alternate magic system (be it something clerical or one of the Path/Book options) to working according to the rules of spell magic. If you want to have some mechanical crunch behind the bit about such spells working by calling on gods, spirits, and so on, you can get that far more effectively by allowing Assisting Spirits to teach the handful of spells that actually functioned before the Hellstorm.

My mistake, I thought Path/Book and RPM where the same thing, or at least that RPM was the expanded/fully-fleshed out verions of Path/book.

How do the world's current metaphysics, apart from magic, not line up with what was around before?

And is there any evidence of magic working before the Hellstorm?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by scc

My mistake, I thought Path/Book and RPM where the same thing, or at least that RPM was the expanded/fully-fleshed out verions of Path/book.

How do the world's current metaphysics, apart from magic, not line up with what was around before?

And is there any evidence of magic working before the Hellstorm?

Regarding the second question: yes.

"Some spells predated the Hellstorm: prayers, the oral rituals of shamanism and Voudoun (ie Voodoo), formulae from old grimoires and Books of Shadows, etc. Many were useless, but a few worked as is, and more were modified into working order. Old Trad spells often invoked the power of ancestors, spirits, saints, angels, demons or divinity." (GURPS Technomancer pg 14)

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.

Originally Posted by scc

maximara, I don't think you realize what the setting of Technomancer is all about. Magic back then made certain assumptions about the world, mainly so that any world it was used in would actually look like a normal fantasy RPG, chief among these fact that Mages are 1 in 100. I believe that the current version of Magic makes the same assumptions.

That is incorrect. All calculations regarding magery in GURPS 3e were based on Magery 1 being the lowest form of magery one could get "officially". Magery 0 existed only as a "house rule" back then.

"Beyond Trinity's Shadow, one in 1,000 people has Magery 1, one in 10,000 has Magery 2, and one in 100,000 has Magery 3." (sidebar pg 70)

Originally Posted by scc

Now then, one day at some point a GURPS writer sat down a decided that he was going to work out how a world that actually had those assumptions would look like and the result was Technomancer.

This means that Technomancer is designed to work with the standard Magic system and ONLY THAT SYSTEM, YOU USE ANYTHING AND YOU ARE LIKELY TO BREAK THE SETTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Total non sequitar as the same agreement could be made regarding for adding Magery 0 to the setting because that wasn't part of the standard magic system back then. Extrapolating from the above the number of mages jumps by a factor of 10.

Originally Posted by scc

Chief among the outcome of this is that enchanted items are EVERYWHERE, you LITERALLY can NOT get a burger without an enchanted item being used to prepare it. Now my copy of RPM isn't available at the moment, but from what I remember enchanted items are RARE under that system.

As I have pointed out before Magery 2 in general and Enchanters in particular was way messed up on Merlin-1 even by straight 3e rules:

GURPS 2e Magic was very clear on this: "In order to create a magical item, the caster (and any assistants) must know the Enchant spell _and_ the spell to be put into the item." (M2e 27) Then GURPS Technomancer expressly states "All mages on the line are "assistants"; as usual, the require skill 15+ in the Enchant spell and the spell being enchanted" (Technomancer 41) The inherent illogic of having Magery 2 common enough that they could be worked as blue color workers seemed to have not occurred to whoever playtested this thing. ( http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...9&postcount=35 )

"The procedure for industrial enchantment is functionally identical to "slow and sure" enchantment (p. M19) in most respects, but dramatically faster. Time required is one day per 10 energy points, divided by the number of mages on the production line (up to line capacity)." (Technomancer 41)

The one thing about enchantment (even via Ritual Magic) is aside from the most basic spells it takes a long time in terms of mage days. The only benefit of industrial enchantment was faster. While we are on the topic of industrial that got a total overhaul in 4e:

Technomancer version: Energy cost to create a production line is 10 times that to enchant
whatever item it makes, multiplied by the square root of the number of mages who
can work there. If an enchantment has a variable cost, base the cost on the specific
item the line produces.

GURPS Fantasy version: the energy cost is twice that of setting up a magical workspace to
build a prototype item, or (number of prerequisite spells +1) * (800 energy points).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by scc

My mistake, I thought Path/Book and RPM where the same thing, or at least that RPM was the expanded/fully-fleshed out verions of Path/book.

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.