Your experiences with Path/Book magic?

[Jürgen Hubert]

I am planning to use the Path/Book magic system for the first time in an upcoming GURPS Fading Suns campaign (as outlined here). And before I do so, I am wondering about other people's experiences with it. What's good, what's bad, what are the major pitfalls? How did it work out in play? What were some high points and what were some low points of its use in your campaign?

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

I am planning to use the Path/Book magic system for the first time in an upcoming GURPS Fading Suns campaign (as outlined here). And before I do so, I am wondering about other people's experiences with it. What's good, what's bad, what are the major pitfalls? How did it work out in play? What were some high points and what were some low points of its use in your campaign?

I played in a game that used it. The campaign started as a sort of take on the TV show 'Supernatural'. Path/Book magic existed as the sort of background assumption on that the original PCs encountered, and one of them had a very specialized access to it. I joined the game later, playing a moderately skilled but broad-based magician. The magic system had a nice feel to it, however even at the tamed-down power of magic relative to GURPS standard, we found that the flexibility of magic made it quickly central to every strategy in play. This may work for your setting, but I think in retrospect our GM for that campaign would have sought some way (perhaps increasing time requirements) to limit the impact of magic even more.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Did you use effect shaping or energy accumulating magic?

And what did Magical Aptitude do, if anything?

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Did you use effect shaping or energy accumulating magic?

And what did Magical Aptitude do, if anything?

We used effect shaping, and aptitude plus IQ was the skill cap in Ritual Magic.

[fifiste]

Did you use your own made up books or took the ready made
paths from the Thaumatology?

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by fifiste

Did you use your own made up books or took the ready made
paths from the Thaumatology?

We used the ready-made paths, though my impression was that the GM regarded Path and Book magery as the same and if I found a Book I might be able to use it.

My character had skills in the Paths of Luck, Knowledge and Protection.

[trooper6]

I used it in my Renaissance Florence game. It worked really, really well.

I used Energy Accumulating, Path Magic, and created 4 different styles. Not all paths were available to all styles. The flashier stuff was only available to those that followed a secret Lady of the Forest sort of thing that involved Spiritual Distortion.

My players also really liked it and found it fun.

[Mr_Sandman]

I used path/book magic for a 1930's pulp game, effect shaping for both paths and books. I liked how it worked. I made up several traditions for both book and path magic. I looked up some real-world historical 'magic' books, to use for the titles of magic books in the game, one of the players who has read up on occult traditions as a hobby really liked that.

One player who put a lot of points into IQ and picked up several magic books for just a few points each leaned toward dominating the game a bit. I had to make sure there were opportunities for the shooter (who also knew a few magic paths), the martial artist, and the gadgeteer to shine.

If I were to run it again, I'd probably be a little stingier with the magic books available to characters to start. That would give me a bit more control over the magic-using characters. It would also make finding a new book more of a big deal. I might also try using energy accumulating for the path magic traditions, to make them feel different from the book-based traditions.

[Kalzazz]

Ive played Path/Book using characters before but never at all understood the system beyond a very vague 'So the Path of Spirit somehow, maybe lets me try Spirit related magic?'

So it was all 'I want to do X!' DM, 'Okay, roll Path-Y'

The DM liked this as he enjoyed the 'describe what you want to do and I will translate it into GURPS for you' style of DMing, but I had mixed feelings as I love the 'I know every single modifier on my actions and love stringing them together'

[Quinlor]

The 3 ed precursor to Path Magic was the most frequently used Magic system for my Group since it first appeared in Gurps Voodoo. We used it in many campaigns and different genres: traditional fantasy, modern day fantasy, horror and historicals with secret supernaturals. It is very similar to the 4th Ed path magic with effect shaping.

I had not the chance to use the 4th ed version, because our current started before Thaumatology was released. We use a heavily modified version of Thomas Weigels “Libere Rituum Magorum” (it’s excellent, but unfortunaly seems not longer be available on the web) that is also based on Path Magic.

I am looking forward using the 4th ed Version in the future.

Effect shaping fits my personally preferences on magic better than most other game mechanics because it avoids the “pool of energy” mechanic, witch feels to “physical” to me.