Mysteries of the Trade [Fantasy]

[AlexanderHowl]

I was wondering if anyone had use the rules for Mysteries of the Trade (Fantasy, pp. 162-163)? One of the unusual things about the Mysteries of the Trade rules is that they imply that talents associated with a craft skill increase the default for the associated (Professional) Magic Skill, though they do not modify the non-default level of the (Professional) Magic Skill. For example, a character with Goodwife 4 and Cooking-20 would have a default of Cooking Magic-14. I was just wondering if anyone had dabbled with it?

[Prince Charon]

Not in a game that's been run, though I've thought about it a lot as the only or most common system (or the primary enchanting system) in a GURPS Middle Earth or similar Epic Fantasy game (or a Yrth variant of that sort). It fits that pretty well, though it does leave open the question of who fills the Wizard niche, if anyone does. If it's not the only system, of course, then that depends on what the other system is, but it should be possible to create a 'wizardly' character using Mysteries of the Trade, as long as the GM is willing to accept edge cases and oddities (which I generally would, if MotT were the main or only magic system).

[AlexanderHowl]

I was thinking about increasing the cost of Talents by 5 CP/level, making them into High Talents, and allowing them to benefit from both Craft Magic Enchantment (Fantasy, p. 160) and Mysteries of the Trade (Fantasy, pp. 162-163). For example, Allure [5 CP/level] would become High Allure [10 CP/level] and would benefit Dancing, Dancing Magic, Erotic Art, Erotic Art Magic, Makeup, Makeup Magic, Sex Appeal, Sex Appeal Magic, Singing, and Singing Magic. It would also allow its practitioners to use their magical skills to enchant items associated with its magic through using slow and sure enchanting (though High Allure would probably not be used much in enchanting).

[Gnome]

I ran a very successful campaign once that used more or less standard magic but included mundane skill requirements for each college. In order to learn spells from that college you had to have at least [4] invested in the skill. It worked really well for distinguishing multiple casters and forcing some specialization, and it felt thematic enough.

The list:

Air—Breath Control
Body Control—Physiology (any)
Communication and Empathy—Psychology
Earth—Masonry or Prospecting
Fire—Smith (any) or Fire Eating
Food—Cooking
Healing—Physician
Illusion—Artist (Illusion)
Knowledge—Research
Light and Darkness—Artist (any mundane)
Making and Breaking—Engineer (any)
Meta—Thaumatology and Research
Mind Control—Hypnotism
Movement—Acrobatics (any)
Necromantic—Expert Skill (Thanatology)
Protection and Warning—Observation
Sound—Singing
Technological—Engineer (any)
Water—Swimming
Weather—Weather Sense

[Donny Brook]

One of the magic types in my sandbox fantasy world is available to characters with Magery + Talent + very high skill in any of several disciplines (e.g. mathematics, natural philosophy). After attaining the necessary skill level they can start putting points into Aspected and Focus-limited Modular Abilities magic.