Quote:
Originally Posted by Willy
Well you also need to take into account, unless SJG wants a reboot of Yrth, and since they literally wrote the story from Fantasy 3rd Ed forth, that didnīt make sense. Also there were publications that made the available spell list a lot bigger.
And if Dr. Kromm says common that means by his own words only that the knowledge is widespread enough that you can learn it openly and in a lot of places, it doesnīt mean that a eremite in the great desert or the whitehood mountains doesnīt knows spells otherwise unknown.
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Before we try to interpret, lets lay out the actual data and not just our third-hand memories of the data.
The whole idea of being "mage-born" is another can of worms, I don't remember any hints that magic works like that in GURPS 4e products. Nobody assumes that people are Combat Reflexes born (or doomed to forever lack that advantage) or Green Thumb born (or doomed to forever lack that advantage) in GURPS settings. GURPS 3e had some restrictions on buying attributes and maybe advantages after character creation which GURPS 4e changed.
Common spells are the ones which affect society. The one lich who develops something horrible is a disaster, not a system. Junior mages specializing in Earth to Stone and building marble or iron palaces change the world.
Edit: a fundamental aspect of Yrth is that it has not, as far as I know, ever claimed to be a rational setting (a setting which is the logical outcome of assumptions made in advance). It tries to do many different things, like allowing "my SCA buddies in fantasyland" and allowing different types of adventures and different tropes. So to make a rational version, I think you would have to work hard to choose the magic rules which allow fantasyland adventures. Reducing child mortality and allowing more towns and goods is probably helpful, cheap mage-iron or agricultural magic which allows a population of only 10% rural farmers is probably not.