Revising GURPS Magic

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I like it! This is so stolen.

I am also contemplating allowing "Ritual Ingredients" for the same price as a source of energy for Ritual Magic in general. Which would make it possible for lone casters to cast those high-powered healing spells (including Resurrection, for $9900), but that also opens up some new cans of worms like very large-scale area effect destructive spells.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

I am also contemplating allowing "Ritual Ingredients" for the same price as a source of energy for Ritual Magic in general. Which would make it possible for lone casters to cast those high-powered healing spells (including Resurrection, for $9900), but that also opens up some new cans of worms like very large-scale area effect destructive spells.

Adaptation of Ars Magica would have this.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by chimchim

I got arround the explosion issue by offering a technique called bigger bangs. Its a hard technique with a -5 for explosion 2 or -10 for explsion 3. These increase damage to secondary targets and increase the area effected.

How do these work, precisely?

Note: While Techniques for spells are a very interesting subject, I think I will give them a pass this time. I will likely change my place of residence very soon, and the odds are that if I will GM GURPS again it will be to a group unfamiliar with the system - so I'd rather not add another layer of complexity.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Air Spells

No-Smell: This is one of those annoying “I win - non-magical countermeasures need not apply!” spells that GURPS Magic could use less off. Granted, it’s not one one of the more problematic ones, since smell doesn’t come up as often as other senses. Still, if the Basic Set doesn’t offer a similar effect, it’s probably a sign that the effect should be reduced. Therefore I propose to change the spell effect to:

I disagree both in general and in the case of this particular spell. A generic magic system needs absolute effects, and No-Smell never caused a problem in a game that I ran.

While default GURPS has a taboo against absolute effects, they are traditional for magic. GURPS Magic should also have weaker versions of important effects for "low magic" settings (in the sense that Ghost Shirt in Thaumatology is a 'low magic,' 'relative' version of 'high magic, absolute' Missile Shield) particularly effects which tend to break common plots like flying, teleportation, invisibility, healing, etc.

I don't think that its unreasonable that in a high-magic setting, defeating magic requires magical countermeasures (whether mana-drained arrows which defeat Missile Shield, or a divination to track someone using spells to mask their footprints and scent). Someone can also defeat that tracker with technology (travel by boat or helicopter), enough armour can neutralize a lot of points spent on shooting skills, ...

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I disagree both in general and in the case of this particular spell. A generic magic system needs absolute effects, and No-Smell never caused a problem in a game that I ran.

While default GURPS has a taboo against absolute effects, they are traditional for magic. GURPS Magic should also have weaker versions of important effects for "low magic" settings (in the sense that Ghost Shirt in Thaumatology is a 'low magic,' 'relative' version of 'high magic, absolute' Missile Shield) particularly effects which tend to break common plots like flying, teleportation, invisibility, healing, etc.

I don't think that its unreasonable that in a high-magic setting, defeating magic requires magical countermeasures (whether mana-drained arrows which defeat Missile Shield, or a divination to track someone using spells to mask their footprints and scent). Someone can also defeat that tracker with technology (travel by boat or helicopter), enough armour can neutralize a lot of points spent on shooting skills, ...

In practice, the effect I see is: "Your character needs to heavily invest in magic in order to be effective". This is not a problem in, say, Ars Magica where all the main characters are expected to be mages, but in mixed parties it is boring.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

In practice, the effect I see is: "Your character needs to heavily invest in magic in order to be effective."

Just like a shooter in many settings after the First World War needs to invest in high-energy weapons and AP rounds for opponents who wear body armour and helmets or hide behind sturdy car doors. But the shooter does not have to make them himself, or have to become a specialist gunsmith and engineer. He just has to prepare for the common countermeasures available in his society, or accept that sometimes his skills will be ineffective.

The spells which I find more problematic are ones like Lockmaster which work like a mundane skill, but better with no real disadvantage except more exciting critical failures. Those are more threatening to characters centred around the mundane skills which they replace. But there is no reliable way to counter being tracked by scent at low TLs, so No-Scent adds a new ability rather than offering a magical replacement for a mundane skill.

[scc]

I've already made a start at something like this, you can view the results of this on the Air College here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Note: I was aiming at doing two things in that document, 1) cutting down on the number of spells by grouping little and similar spells together, notice how Breathe Water and Breathe Air are now one spell? 2) Restructuring things so that there was now a 6 tier structure like there is for Cleric's and Durid's in DF

As for your comments about No Smell, I think your wrong, it's more like Flight, in that it breaks the trial for someone following rather Invisibility

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Just like a shooter in many settings after the First World War needs to invest in high-energy weapons and AP rounds for opponents who wear body armour and helmets or hide behind sturdy car doors. But the shooter does not have to make them himself, or have to become a specialist gunsmith and engineer. He just has to prepare for the common countermeasures available in his society, or accept that sometimes his skills will be ineffective.

This is all right for settings where the setting assumptions are extrapolated from the existing magic rules, but I prefer something closer to traditional mixed-party fantasy games where non-mages have the opportunity to shine even if they are not loaded up on magical tools (though those will help, of course).

In the end, it's a personal preference.

[hal]

What I find interesting in all of this is the simple fact that what you need to do is rewrite the entire GURPS MAGIC spell list. That is essentially what is being sought here even if that isn't what you're saying.

Ironically enough - that is PERFECTLY within keeping of what GURPS MAGIC is all about.

1) A standardized methodology for describing spells - from what type of spell it is, whether it is mental average, hard, etc as a spell, right up to spell duration, and spell effects, and energy costs.

2) a means for categorizing spells such that they are grouped together by some commonality (ie colleges).

What many fail to realize is that GURPS MAGIC started off relatively small. Then someone did a bunch of spells in the ROLEPLAYER (Early editions) that later got modified and included in the second edition of Magic. Then the magical spells as listed grew in size when we had GURPS GRIMOIRE. Then, as a final insult, GURPS MAGIC for 4e added yet MORE spells - spells that had not been playtested nor compared/contrasted against already existing spells.

Yes - GURPS MAGIC for 4e is a MESS. I haven't permitted its use in my campaigns since it came out largely for the following reasons:

GURPS GRIMOIRE had some really BAD additions - that BOOK isn't allowed unfettered into my campaign worlds.

GURPS MAGIC for 4e mixed in together all of what I considered to be bad in GURPS GRIMOIRE and its own new spells that they aren't allowed PERIOD.

And frankly, I'm a FAN of GURPS MAGIC in general.

Now for the bad news...

Because GURPS MAGIC is pre-requisite based, the bad spells that shouldn't be permitted in the campaign are part of a chain that has to be pruned/eliminated. Those spells that were thought of after the fact (such as suspend mana) should have been included PRIOR to "Destroy Mana" but because they came out after the first spell chain pre-requisite was published, they had to be added after the fact.

If I had my way, SJGames should have provided a spreadsheet that permits a GM to customize their spell requisite chains, and be able to hit a button where the customized requisite chain could be turned into a GURPS CHARACTER ASSISTANT file that allows a GM to customize their own version of MAGIC for their own games. But, that's not to be.

What really needs to be done is to revamp the book - and we all know THAT won't be done either.

So - my advice to you? Create your own document in WORD or what ever you favor for use on your computer. Create your own structure, and your own spells and spell effects and spell descriptions. IT would be no more or less valid that what currently exists in GURPS MAGIC.

As a final comment: Because SJGames abandoned GURPS MAGIC for 4e (Want proof - count how many magic systems now extant within GURPS 4e), there is evidence that people just don't care. They either use GURPS MAGIC for 4e as written, or like me, they use the earlier version of GURPS MAGIC customizes for their own game worlds. Either that, or they use the alternative magic systems. No one really cares about GURPS MAGIC for 4e, and it will simply languish from lack of attention until either GURPS 5e comes out, or SJGames ceases to publish for GURPS.

For the record? I lent out some of my GURPS Books to a co-worker in an effort to excite new players into the system. Time will tell as to whether they like it or not. But if I do introduce them to GURPS MAGIC, it won't be the latest version and I'll explain why to them. Then I'll let them make their own decisions (as it will be their own gaming crew located some 45 minutes drive one way, from my home). I'll expose them to it, help nurture them, but in the end, they will make their own stories (as it should be!).

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by hal

What I find interesting in all of this is the simple fact that what you need to do is rewrite the entire GURPS MAGIC spell list. That is essentially what is being sought here even if that isn't what you're saying.

While I do plan to rewrite a fair bunch, not the entire list - most spells are perfectly all right, and it's only a few spells for each college that I have problems with.

Because GURPS MAGIC is pre-requisite based, the bad spells that shouldn't be permitted in the campaign are part of a chain that has to be pruned/eliminated. Those spells that were thought of after the fact (such as suspend mana) should have been included PRIOR to "Destroy Mana" but because they came out after the first spell chain pre-requisite was published, they had to be added after the fact.

Rewriting the prerequisites is beyond the scope of this current project - my current focus is to fix the effect of spells while keeping the prerequisites unchanged.

Though I have contemplated reworking them at some point - essentially, there would be a list of "commonly known" spells that could be freely learned by all mages (possibly those in the Basic Set), and more complex ones that can only be learned by members of certain Magical Styles.

But that will have to wait for a future date.

If I had my way, SJGames should have provided a spreadsheet that permits a GM to customize their spell requisite chains, and be able to hit a button where the customized requisite chain could be turned into a GURPS CHARACTER ASSISTANT file that allows a GM to customize their own version of MAGIC for their own games. But, that's not to be.

Not a spreadsheet, but while working on Charm Trees for Exalted 3E last year I discovered a nifty little program named GraphViz which would make it very easy to visualize GURPS Magic-style prerequisite chains. And once all the spells have been recreated as GraphViz code, it would be really easy to rearrange them and create new prerequisite visualizations (such as for individual Magical Styles).

As a final comment: Because SJGames abandoned GURPS MAGIC for 4e (Want proof - count how many magic systems now extant within GURPS 4e), there is evidence that people just don't care. They either use GURPS MAGIC for 4e as written, or like me, they use the earlier version of GURPS MAGIC customizes for their own game worlds. Either that, or they use the alternative magic systems. No one really cares about GURPS MAGIC for 4e, and it will simply languish from lack of attention until either GURPS 5e comes out, or SJGames ceases to publish for GURPS.

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.