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Old 04-22-2021, 09:45 AM   #1
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Discussing Yrth History & Evolution of GURPS MAGIC

Hello Folks,
Having come across another thread in which someone posted a comment about the differing mana zones and the "Errata" to GURPS Fantasy that, after careful research through original sources - to wit:

GURPS FANTASY 1st edition
GURPS MAGIC 1st edition
GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition

I can find no particular reason that the so called "Errata" even makes sense. Rather than let this particular debate derail the other thread, I am opening it here.

In addition, I thought it might be useful to discuss how the evolution of GURPS MAGIC since it was first introduced in 1986 (Via GURPS FANTASY 1st edition) on through to GURPS MAGIC for 4e, might affect the narrative of Yrth.

So - some basic facts:

GURPS FANTASY 1st edition: Published in 1986. It contains a total of 136 spells.

GURPS MAGIC 1st edition: Published in 1989. It contained a total of 413 spells.

GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition was published in 1990, and had subsequent upgrades over time. I'll leave the spell count to someone who wants to count them from the GURPS CLASSIC MAGIC PDF.

GURPS GRIMOIRE: Published in 1994. If I recall correctly, it was a project that had multiple authors and a fair bit of its own troubles, but that's just my recollection (imperfect as it may be). It was here that we begin to see spells like RAIN OF STONES, RAIN OF FIRE etc. These are spells of mass damage that would be more appropriate on a battle field. Prior to this books publication, there weren't all to many spells possible where mages could inflict massive amounts of damage.j

GURPS MAGIC for 4e: Published in (I believe, 2004) - don't quote me on that. It has somewhere in the vicinity of 883 spells (if my excel spreadsheet is anything to go by) but some of those are duplicates as they are spells that exist within more than one college.

Addenda:
Looks like I missed a page from GURPS FANTASY 1st edition. Corrected Spell count should now be 304 spells. This number includes the fact that Summon, Control, and Create Elemental is really 12 spells, not 3 - one for each element.

Last edited by hal; 04-24-2021 at 06:28 AM. Reason: Addenda: Missed a page darn it
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