GURPS Magic System Index

[dfinlay]

Something that I recently realized (while participating in this thread: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=141813) would be useful, especially to new players would be a list of each official magic system made for GURPS along with the following things:

• Brief Summary of Idea of Magic System
• Core setting assumptions that are either built in or are much easier to make work with the system
• How moddable the system is and a brief summary of official mods or optional rules for the system
• What people most like about the system
• What people most dislike about the system
• How easy the system is to use for Players/GMs during prep time/play
• What books are neccessary for the magic system and which books add on to the magic system (and how much)

Assuming that there isn't already such a document out there and that people agree that the creation of such makes sense, this thread is for brainstorming and debating. Feel free to take any magic system and say what you think for any/each of these points. Ideally, we'll get as much consensus as possible then collate it all.

To begin with, I'm just going to throw out each magic system I can think of that should be in the document. I'll almost certainly miss a bunch, so tell me which ones I've missed.

1. Basic Magic
2. Magic as Powers (note that several below are really special cases of this, but I felt they should be treated as their own).
3. Path/Book Magic
4. Ritual Path Magic
5. Symbol Magic
6. Verb-Noun Magic
7. Realm Magic
8. Sorcery
9. Psionic Powers
10. Chinese Elemental Powers
11. The Magic of Stories (don't have this Pyramid so don't know if its its own system or a set of tweaks to another one).
12. Divine Favor
13. Imbuments

[Mr_Sandman]

There's also Divine Favor, Imbuments, and variations on the basic version of magic, such as Threshold and Ritual Magic

[johndallman]

There are several variants on the basic magic system: Clerical Magic and Ritual Magic are on B242, Threshold Magic and probably more variations are in Thaumatology.

[dfinlay]

Originally Posted by Mr_Sandman

There's also Divine Favor, Imbuments, and variations on the basic version of magic, such as Threshold and Ritual Magic

I will add Divine Favor and Imbuments.

Originally Posted by johndallman

There are several variants on the basic magic system: Clerical Magic and Ritual Magic are on B242, Threshold Magic and probably more variations are in Thaumatology.

I deliberately didn't include most of these for the same reason I didn't include Effect-Shaping based RPM. They are variants of Core Magic (we need a good official name for this system) and should probably be mentioned in the mods section of the Basic Magic system.

[munin]

Originally Posted by dfinlay

… (we need a good official name for this system) …

GURPS Thaumatology refers to it as "standard magic" in a number of places (pp. 9, 25, 29, 36, 51, 64, 76, etc.) and in various ways: "the standard magic system", "a standard-magic game", "If threshold-limited and standard magic coexist…", etc.

However, I've found that "Basic Set Magic" is clear and unambiguous to everyone: the magic system introduced in the Basic Set.

[Mr_Sandman]

I checked, and The Magic of Stories is based on Path/Book Magic.

For a while, some people on the forum were calling the magic system from the Basic Set and GURPS Magic the "Hawthorne system", after one of the characters in the vignettes in GURPS Magic. I think that kind of petered out though.

I usually call it the basic magic system or the default magic system. Standard magic system works too.

[Jürgen Hubert]

...I would like to point out that the GURPS Index is a pretty good place to put such a list.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Mr_Sandman

For a while, some people on the forum were calling the magic system from the Basic Set and GURPS Magic the "Hawthorne system", after one of the characters in the vignettes in GURPS Magic. I think that kind of petered out though.

I usually call it the basic magic system or the default magic system. Standard magic system works too.

Over on IRC, we usually just end up calling the default magic system "Magic-magic", as GURPS Magic is where it's expanded.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

There's a guy doing comparisons of various magic systems on his blog. That may be a useful resource for this effort.

[trechriron]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

...I would like to point out that the GURPS Index is a pretty good place to put such a list.

Yes. It's nice to be able to go to one place and find useful things like this.