Revising GURPS Magic

[Jürgen Hubert]

Animal Spells

Spider Silk: This is kinda weak as an attack spell, considering that you first need to hit the target (and Dodge has gotten a boost since GURPS 3E, a common problem with all missile spells), the range is rather short, and even if you do hit someone a single strand only has a ST of 10, which gives an ordinary human a 50% chance to get out of it after one second and heroic fighter-types will get out of it very quickly. Yes, it has some nifty secondary uses, but it really needs a bit of a boost. Furthermore, it is unclear how shooting multiple strands is supposed to work - does it work like Rapid Fire, do you roll each attack automatically, or do they all hit or miss together? Hence I propose the following changes:

“A single strand has an effective ST of 10 plus the base energy cost paid for the spell, as well as DR 3.”

“The caster may shoot as many strands as he has arms from a single casting of Spider Silk; calculate the total cost of the casting by adding up the total length of all strands. Resolve the attack as Rapid Fire (p. B373) with Rcl 1.”

“The web has DR 3 and a ST of 10 plus the base energy cost paid for the spell, plus 1 ST for each additional strand.”

“Base Cost: Any amount up to your Magery. A base strand has a length of 5 yards, and you can extend this length by 5 yards by paying one point of energy beyond the base cost (maximum 100 yards).”

I think these will contribute to making Spider Silk an interesting and viable alternative to other attack spells - and more variety is always good.


Partial Shapeshifting: Since the spell claims that it works “as Shapeshifting, but…” this implies that the subject also potentially loses IQ after each hour the spell is maintained. However, since the spell never transforms the part of the head that houses the brain, I think this should be discarded.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

I think that's a bit unfair. It still gets new supplements and new spells on a fairly regular basis - more than for any other currently GURPS magic system, in fact. Unfortunately, the basic spell lists do have some problems, but I think they are fixable.

This is just my opinion, but almost ALL of the supplements for GURPS MAGIC have been of a type that, instead of strengthening the original rules for GURPS MAGIC, have instead, been published to customize the rules or do away with some rules, or what have you.

In short, they have been designed to loosen the restrictions of the original rules and permitted GM's to customize the way they play the game using GURPS MAGIC.

My opinion of GURPS MAGIC as from GURPS FANTASY 1st edition, or GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition - both are superior products to either of GURPS GRIMOIRE or GURPS MAGIC for 4e. So much so, that I have yet to ONCE use the GURPS MAGIC for 4e rules as written.

Here's a thought for you, just to give you an idea of why I have issues with the lack of foresight exhibited by some of the spell designers included within GURPS MAGIC for GURPS 3e...

In reality, it generally took 9 rural families to support a non-rural family. The ratio would change over time such that by 1900 AD in the United States, the ratio of Rural to Non-rurual became 1:1 (ie 1 farmer could produce sufficient food for his own family, seed stock for next year's planting, and sufficient surplus to feed one other non-farming family).

So, let's use relatively simple algebra:

• L = Land used by one family to farm and produce harvest
• H = harvest of one family's output for entire year
• S = seedstock required to plant for next year
• F = food required to feed one family for one year

Based upon the statistic that 9 families were required to farm in order to provide for 10 families worth of food, we get:

9L produces 9H
S = .25H per L (General rule of thumb was 1/4 of your harvest was needed for next year's planting)

So, we need 9 x .25 H for next year's planting. That works out to 2.25H required to plant 9L.

That leaves us with 9H-2.25H to feed 10 families. 6.75H/10 = .675H is required to feed one family.

So far, so good.

Now - DOUBLE the output because of the Bless Plant spell. Instead of 9 x H for 9H worth of food, we have 9 x L x 2 or 18H of harvest.

Subtract the 2.25H needed for next year's planting, and we have a total of 15.75H remaining. We only need .675 units of H to feed a family for a year, which means that we have enough surplus to feed nearly 23 families. Subtract the original 9 rural families, and we instead, have enough surplus for 14 NON-RURAL families. That is 14 times as many non-rural families as was historical for medieval times. But wait, there's more. Remember I mentioned that we didn't see a 1:1 ratio of famers to non-farmers until the early 1900's in the Untied States? A true 1:1 ratio with 9 farmer families would be 9 non-farmer families. We made it to 14 non-farmer families based on that example above. This means that the repeated 100% use of the Bless Plant spell (where all lands cultivated are blessed), would result in sufficient surpluses in food that BETTERS that found in the 1900's 9:14 is 1:1.56 ratio.

So - you want to keep your fantasy games firmly in control, you NEED to keep the metaphysics of the game world FIRMLY in control. GURPS MAGIC for 4e fails that test in a major way.

Suggestion: Remove anything that produces something for nothing.

Suggestion: Make enchantments degradable (ie roll against Power every year to see if the enchantment drops a power level or not. Once it reaches a given level, the enchantment no longer works

Suggestion: anything that ceases to function properly in a Non-Mana zone, is by definition, an ONGOING magical effect. Anything that remains unchanged regardless of whether it is in a mana region or not, should be deemed instant or permanent. IF magic is required to differentiate after the fact, whether or not a magical spell can effect an object, then it too is an ongoing spell. Case in point: Stone to Flesh. How does a spell know that stone was once living or was never living? If that is the case, then plunging someone into a no mana zone should render them "Living" as flesh again.

Suggestion: ignore a large part of what is in GURPS MAGIC and make your own mind up on what you want. For instance, let's say that there are two spells that produce food. One produces food that is permanent, the other spell, produces food that disappears in a no-mana zone. Clearly they are of two different duration types - but how would YOU as the GM classify it based on the guidelines in GURPS MAGIC for 4e? More importantly, how would you Describe those two spells in GURPS terms? Would it cost more energy for the Permanent Duration spell? It probably should. Would the prerequisite chain be different for the permanent version of the food versus the less permanent version of the spell? Possibly (one might require enchantment for the permanent version!).

GURPS MAGIC for 4e gave us SOME new tools for describing spells. But - as a full fledged product, it needs to be pruned, tweaked, and kicked into shape rather than permitted to continue life as a changeling that has undergone multiple changes, philosophical changes (ie how magic works with magery etc) and even the game designer philosophy changes. Take a GOOD hard look at the rules for ritual spell casting from the following:
GURPS FANTASY 1st edition
GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition (first printing)
GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition (later printings)
GURPS MAGIC for 4e

The differences are subtle, but they are THERE. Net result is that getting energy for large cost spells is easier. Sean Punch in a private discussion with me indicated that mages who can consistently count on having a group of acolytes holding candles etc - should be paying the cost of an ally group in order to gain the effects of that. My take on it is that no matter how much a person may THINK he wants something to happen, emotional undercurrents can sabotage the ceremonial spell casting simply because emotions aren't necessarily consistent. Smart people don't always make smart choices. <shrug>

Well, enough on that - my take on GURPS MAGIC is that when it was simply GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition, one COULD pretend "what would a world be like if GURPS MAGIC functioned as listed?". With GURPS MAGIC for 4e, I look at that process with horror and say "are you insane?!!!". That is why you won't ever see another Alaconius lecture. Maybe on the older spells, but it won't ever be inclusive of GURPS GRIMOIRE or GURPS MAGIC for 4e spells newly minted for that publication. HELL no.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by hal

SJGames abandoned GURPS MAGIC for 4e (Want proof - count how many magic systems now extant within GURPS 4e)

GURPS Magic is the core magic system for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, and the default in GURPS Thaumatology, and the subject of GURPS Thaumatology: Magical Styles and GURPS Magic: Death Spells. All four suggest ways of modifying the basic system to suit particular campaigns (and that is not new at all: the original concept of GURPS Magic was a loose framework for defining whatever strange powers a GM wanted in his game, so there were spells to let ghosts do ghost things, horror villains do horrifically villainous things, etc. and books or Pyramid articles frequently included a few new spells). But people like to buy alternate magic systems, and SJG publishes supplements which sell, which are not necessarily the same as the supplements which people use.

Just because you would like to return to GURPS 3e Magic (or a slightly earlier version) does not mean that SJ Games can write you a book to do it. They need to expect that it will sell enough to pay their authors, editors, book designers, and printers/web hosts while not alienating customers who like the old version or don't want to pay for a revision of a product that they already own. One of the problems is that while there is a general agreement that G4eM has problems, there is little agreement on what the most urgent ones are.

Like hal's and David Pulver's, my vision of a GURPS 4e Magic Revised has a short list of core spells, simpler prerequisite chains, and more guidelines to help chose spells for a particular setting without having to sort through 800 spells. It would also spell out the core spells and their direct implications from the original list (for example, the basic counters to common effects, the most important Metamagic spells for creative effects, ...)

No spell which lets a handful of people break a vaguely preindustrial setting would be in the core list, although I am not so worried about methodical ritual castings of agricultural magic because they happen in the background and I have never seen players do a survey of what village wizards do for a living, how many of them there are, and how it affects the economy.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by hal

Now - DOUBLE the output because of the Bless Plant spell. Instead of 9 x H for 9H worth of food, we have 9 x L x 2 or 18H of harvest.

Subtract the 2.25H needed for next year's planting, and we have a total of 15.75H remaining. We only need .675 units of H to feed a family for a year, which means that we have enough surplus to feed nearly 23 families.

Assuming of course that living in a fantasy setting doesn't lead to the existence of things that also reduce productivity. Malevolent spirits, armies of monsters trampling your land, witches cursing your crops...you know. The usual.

Subtract the original 9 rural families, and we instead, have enough surplus for 14 NON-RURAL families. That is 14 times as many non-rural families as was historical for medieval times.

Uh-hunh. Of course fantasy settings frequently do have less worked farmland than historical ones to make space for the monster-infested wilderness.

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by hal

In reality, it generally took 9 rural families to support a non-rural family. The ratio would change over time such that by 1900 AD in the United States, the ratio of Rural to Non-rurual became 1:1 (ie 1 farmer could produce sufficient food for his own family, seed stock for next year's planting, and sufficient surplus to feed one other non-farming family).

[...]

This means that the repeated 100% use of the Bless Plant spell (where all lands cultivated are blessed), would result in sufficient surpluses in food that BETTERS that found in the 1900's 9:14 is 1:1.56 ratio.

Yeah, that kind of thing does damage the medieval theme of your setting. Having magic effectively push the TL in an area by +1 or +2 doesn't bother me. After all, people are going to have clever uses for magic if it is commonly available in the setting. But going from TL3 to TL6 is way too extreme!

Farmers still rely on TL3 harvesting techniques, and that may be the limiting factor here. Determining the proportion of mages that go into agriculture, how efficient their castings are, and how efficient the farmers are is irrelevant to most campaigns! Abstracting this kind of thing as a bonus to TL for specific technology areas is a good way to mitigate this problem. Although I'd be surprised if populations don't expand in response to agrimancy.

Originally Posted by hal

Suggestion: Remove anything that produces something for nothing.

Agreed, these can easily break the game and the economy.

Originally Posted by hal

My take on it is that no matter how much a person may THINK he wants something to happen, emotional undercurrents can sabotage the ceremonial spell casting simply because emotions aren't necessarily consistent. Smart people don't always make smart choices.

This is the view I take on this matter. Some people are going to resent being drafted to cast a spell ceremonially. Ceremonial casting sounds tedious. Large rituals could fail due to participants getting bored or worrying about their to do lists. Mages unwilling to pay people for their time deserve a -4 to skill for antagonizing the locals!

Originally Posted by hal

Well, enough on that - my take on GURPS MAGIC is that when it was simply GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition, one COULD pretend "what would a world be like if GURPS MAGIC functioned as listed?". With GURPS MAGIC for 4e, I look at that process with horror and say "are you insane?!!!".

Agreed. Parsing a spell list of 850 spells to see how they would affect the world is impractical.

[scc]

Just a side note: Bless Plants is small fry compared to Essential Earth on page M53

[Edges]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

GURPS Magic is the core magic system for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, and the default in GURPS Thaumatology, and the subject of GURPS Thaumatology: Magical Styles and GURPS Magic: Death Spells.

Don't forget GURPS Magic: Plant Spells!

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I am interested in possibly refactoring Magery vs. Talents; but my preference would be to make Magery less like Talents (i.e., replacing its spellcasting bonus with something else, as yet undetermined), and then making Talents-as-written available for spells. But that's more than a tweak; so it should probably be discussed elsewhere.

It is obvious that one of the problems with the GURPS Magic magic system, dating all the way back to when it was originally created, is that Magery both functions as a proto-Talent (long before Talents were invented), or a sub-attribute of IQ if you prefer it that way, and as a prerequisite for being able to learn powerful and very powerful spells, the later trying to represent the distiction between those who are born with the genes for powerful magic and those who might as well go sit in the corner and sulk.

Splitting those up, so that there are two different traits, one that serves as a Talent or pseudo-Talent or sub-attribute, and another that represents being born with the potential to learn and cast powerful spells, would be a step in the right direction.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

It is obvious that one of the problems with the GURPS Magic magic system, dating all the way back to when it was originally created, is that Magery both functions as a proto-Talent (long before Talents were invented), or a sub-attribute of IQ if you prefer it that way, and as a prerequisite for being able to learn powerful and very powerful spells, the later trying to represent the distiction between those who are born with the genes for powerful magic and those who might as well go sit in the corner and sulk.

Splitting those up, so that there are two different traits, one that serves as a Talent or pseudo-Talent or sub-attribute, and another that represents being born with the potential to learn and cast powerful spells, would be a step in the right direction.

How is a certain level of Talent acting as a prerequisite a problem?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by hal

Suggestion: Remove anything that produces something for nothing.

.

There are no such spells. All have costs in learning them and have cost sin casting them as well. Especially opportunity costs.

Of course, I wouldn't care if they did damage my medieval theme because I've never had a medieval theme. I've never even had an authentic medieval backdrop. I've certainly never done a census of off-screen peasants. so it doesn't bother me if there aren't enough of them.

I don't even have PCs with authentically bad teeth and for historical accuracy that ought to be a factor into the WWII era.

I've never had authentic medieval disease and filth and never missed them either.

You can't ruin my game world by violating its' medieval economy either. It's not being run as an economic simulator. My PCs are just grateful that there's someone out there willing to exchange magic for money. They themselves have never shown any great interest in using their magic to make money. It'd be a bad trade from their viewpoint.

Really, this is all more theory. I've rarely heard any objections to Magic that ween't based in theory rather than the reality of running games.